'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Companion Edition' Presents Twain's Beloved Boy's Book in the Text of the First American Edition of 1876

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Companion Edition" Presents Twain's Beloved Boy's Book in the Text of the First American Edition of 1876

Cross-checked against the 1876 Hartford printing, with 41 period spellings restored, 142 of True W. Williams's original illustrations returned to their places, and discussion questions fenced at the graveyard, the trial, and the cave

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, In the summer of 1876, the American Publishing Company of Hartford issued a novel its author called a hymn to boyhood: the whitewashed fence, the graveyard at midnight, the runaway pirates of Jackson's Island, the trial, the treasure, and the cave. A new Companion Classics edition, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Companion Edition, presents the complete novel, Preface, all thirty-five chapters, and the Conclusion, 69,905 words in all, unabridged, in the text of that first American edition, taken from Project Gutenberg eBook #74 and cross-checked against a scan of the 1876 Hartford printing itself. (The book was actually published in England a few months earlier, in June 1876; this edition follows the American text throughout, and its Note on This Edition explains the witnesses honestly.)

Where the modern transmission has smoothed the first edition's spellings, this edition restores the 1876 readings, Welchman, school-house, to-day, and their fellows, forty-one restorations in all. The text is otherwise exactly as published in 1876, the book's period language included, unaltered; a respectful, factual editor's note on the period stands at the front of the book.

The 1876 edition was illustrated by True W. Williams, and this edition restores his pictures from the first-edition scan at their original positions: 140 of the 159 in-text illustrations named in the first edition's own list, plus the frontispiece portrait of Tom and a chapter-opening vignette of Sid that the printed list omits, 142 illustrations in all. The nineteen pieces that could not be restored cleanly from this copy are named in the edition's appendix, omitted, never faked.

Around the novel, the companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction on Twain in Hartford and the book as a hymn to boyhood written for adults too; a Who's Who in ten entries, Tom, Huck, Becky Thatcher, Aunt Polly, Sid, Muff Potter, Injun Joe, Joe Harper, the Widow Douglas, and Mr. Dobbins; four explainers, on St. Petersburg as Hannibal, Missouri, on Mississippi river-town life in the 1840s, on superstition and folk belief in the book, and on the schoolroom and Sunday-school world; a short life of Mark Twain; a reading schedule in three stretches; discussion questions for six chapter groups plus a whole-book set, spoiler-fenced at the graveyard, the trial, and the cave; and an appendix, "The Text and the Pictures," setting out the witnesses, the forty-one restorations, and the full illustration record.

Alongside the book, the Tom Sawyer Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (14 pages, US Letter) for reading groups: a three-meeting fenced plan, the Who's Who, a chapter map of all thirty-five chapters, all the discussion questions, and a "Spot the Superstition" feature drawn from the book's folk beliefs. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: [links pending parent]

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Companion Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: [links pending parent], and in The Classics and Companions Shop on the editor's Linktree. Print editions follow on Amazon (paperback, $14.99; hardcover, $24.99). The novel's text is public domain worldwide (Mark Twain died in 1910), and Williams's illustrations are likewise public domain; all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with any film, stage adaptation, or other edition.

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

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Companion Edition, The Original 1876 Text: With an Introduction, Explainers, and Discussion Questions, Mark Twain (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Text: the first American edition (American Publishing Company, Hartford, 1876), via Project Gutenberg eBook #74, cross-checked against the Internet Archive scan of the 1876 Hartford printing; Preface, 35 chapters, and Conclusion; 69,622 words (69,905 with Preface and Conclusion); interior proof 437 pages, 6 x 9 in.