Harper Collins is proud to present its new range of best-loved essential classics Now he found out a new thing
- namely that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go & do that very thing' An idyllic snapshot of a boy's childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author's work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s Mischievous & full of energy Tom enjoys childish pranks & pastimes with his friends Huck Finn the town outcast & Joe Harper his best friend However at the town graveyard Huck & Tom witness a murder carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen & so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality guilt & anxiety A coming of age' tale it is through Tom's adventures & relationships with others that he becomes more responsible & more aware of his own inner conflict Through the central characters of Tom & Huck Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society & adult hypocrisy whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy's journey into adulthood