Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Companion Edition Presents Twain's Novel in the United States First-Edition Text with All 174 of Kemble's Illustrations Restored

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Companion Edition Presents Twain's Novel in the United States First-Edition Text with All 174 of Kemble's Illustrations Restored

The Webster 1885 text printed unaltered, with a Who's Who, five explainers, a plain note on the book's period language, and discussion questions fenced by section

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, Mark Twain worked on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in fits and starts, for seven years. It was first published by Chatto & Windus in London in December 1884, and in the United States by Charles L. Webster and Company in February 1885, and within weeks a public library in Concord, Massachusetts, had banned it as "trash." A new Companion Classics edition, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Companion Edition, presents the complete novel, all forty-three chapters, with the author's own Notice and Explanatory, 109,811 words, unabridged and unaltered, in the text of the United States first edition, taken from Project Gutenberg eBook #76 and verified against scans of both the London and American first editions.

A boy who cannot bear to be "sivilized" lights out down the Mississippi on a raft with Jim, a man escaping slavery, and the river carries them through a world of feuding families, confidence men, and small-town cruelty, while Huck's conscience, trained by that world, tells him that helping Jim is wickedness, and he decides to do it anyway. It is the book Ernest Hemingway judged the source of all modern American literature, and its final chapters have been argued over ever since.

Around the novel, the companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction tracing the book's seven-year composition, its 1885 banning in Concord, and its standing since; all 174 of E. W. Kemble's first-edition illustrations, the count both first-edition title pages advertise, restored to their original places in the text, plus the heliotype frontispiece portrait of Twain from Karl Gerhardt's bust; a Who's Who of the whole crew; five explainers, the river and the raft; the dialects Twain built, in his word, "painstakingly"; the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud; the King and the Duke and the confidence-men tradition; and the famous ending controversy, given a fair hearing on both sides; a short life of Mark Twain; a four-meeting reading schedule; and discussion questions fenced by section, so Jim's fate and the truth behind the Phelps farm stay sealed until the end.

The edition also carries a plain and honest note on the book's period language, printed before the novel begins. The novel uses the era's racial language, including slurs, and this edition prints the text exactly as written, Twain's target is slavery and the society built on it. Readers, teachers, and book clubs are asked to read the note first; every discussion question in the edition and its kit is written so the book can be discussed fully without anyone having to say the period slur aloud.

Alongside the book, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (15 pages, US Letter) for reading groups, classrooms, and families: four meetings, one for each leg of the journey, with every question fenced to its meeting's chapters; a Who's Who; a chapter & journey map of all forty-three chapters; "Spot the Scene", six passages taken word-for-word from the novel, with the answer key at the back; whole-book questions; and ruled notes pages. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Companion Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip, and in The Classics and Companions Shop on the editor's Linktree. Print editions follow on Amazon (paperback, $15.99; hardcover, $26.99). The novel's text and Kemble's illustrations are public domain worldwide (Mark Twain died in 1910; E. W. Kemble in 1933); all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with or endorsed by any other edition or adaptation.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Companion Edition, Mark Twain (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Text: the United States first edition (Charles L. Webster and Company, New York, February 1885; first published by Chatto & Windus, London, December 1884), via Project Gutenberg eBook #76, verified against scans of both first editions; 43 chapters with the author's Notice and Explanatory; 109,811 words; 174 illustrations by E. W. Kemble plus the Gerhardt-bust heliotype frontispiece; interior proof 459 pages, 6 x 9 in.