In Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain presented for the first time the vernacular of the Mississippi River region, explored the myths and fables of the nation's past, and looked to the choices facing a rapidly changing society. Moving from a discussion of the novels' early receptions, this Columbia Critical Guide explores nineteenth- and twentieth-century criticism by William Dean Howells, T. S. Eliot, Leslie Fiedler, Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, and Toni Morrison. In its final section, the book provides students with important material on the contemporary debates about race and gender in these novels so that new perspectives on Twain's place in American literature may be fully understood.