Audiobook · read by volunteers
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (version 2)
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
Read by Mark F. Smith · 43 chapters · 11 h 33
About the book
Huckleberry Finn is a boy who has had enough of respectable life. Adopted by a kind widow, beaten by a drunken father, he fakes his own death and slips away on the Mississippi River. On the way he meets Jim, a runaway slave, and the two of them float downriver on a raft, meeting swindlers, feuding families, storms and sudden dangers. Mark Twain tells the story in Huck's own words, with dry humour and a quiet ear for the way people talk, and behind the fun lies a serious question about friendship and conscience. Mark F. Smith reads the forty-three chapters of this classic of American fiction in about twelve hours. Funny, tender and sometimes unsettling, it is a classic for good reason.
Introduction
Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, lived from 1835 to 1910. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn came out in 1884 in Britain and in 1885 in the United States, and it is often named as one of the foundations of modern American literature. It was written as a sequel of sorts to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and it takes one of that book's supporting characters and gives him a voice of his own.
The novel is told in the first person, in a vernacular English that was highly unusual in its day. Twain based Huck's speech on the language of the Mississippi valley, and he made it a vehicle for both comedy and moral reflection. The book is also well known for its portrait of Jim and for the way it handles the subject of slavery, which has led to debate for many years. Readers have valued it for its honesty, though it requires attention to its context.
This is the second LibriVox recording of the novel, and it lasts nearly twelve hours in 43 chapters. It is read throughout by a single volunteer, Mark F. Smith. Listening to the book aloud suits it well, since Huck's voice was meant to be heard, and the long river journey is a good companion for any season.
Twain's choice to let Huck speak for himself gives the book its lasting freshness. The comedy is real, but so is the unease, and the novel invites the listener to question what Huck has been taught.
Public domain
Mark Twain died in 1910: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text