Young Huck Finn fakes his own death to flee from his drunken father and the 'sivilising' influence of the Widow Douglas; the slave Jim wants to escape being sold by his owner. And together the two runaways travel down the Mississippi, encountering feuding families, an unlikely Duke and King, and all manner of adventures. 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain's masterpiece. Its sharp conscience sets the standards of the day against a deeper personal morality, and, with an unparalleled comic touch, it became the wellspring for modern American literature: what Hemingway called 'the best book we've had'.