&quot;The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn&quot; is a novel by Mark Twain, published in the United Kingdom in 1884 and in the United States in 1885.&nbsp;<br />&quot;The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn&quot; is often considered Twain&#39;s greatest masterpiece. Combining his raw humour and startlingly mature material, Twain developed a novel that directly attacked many of the traditions the South held dear at the time of its publication. Huckleberry Finn is the main character, and through his eyes, the reader sees and judges the South, its faults, and its redeeming qualities.<br />Huck, the narrator, is a youngster whose artless vernacular speech is admirably adapted to detailed and poetic descriptions of scenes, vivid representations of characters, and narrative renditions that are both broadly comic and subtly ironic.<br /><br />Huck begins the book by recapping what happened in the prequel &quot;The Adventures of Tom Sawyer&quot;; then he tells the reader that he is currently living with the Widow Douglas because his father, whom he calls Pap, tends to be irresponsible. He and his best friend Tom like to sneak out at night and even form what they consider to be a &quot;gang,&quot; which consists mostly of them pretending to do bad things to people.<br /><br />The novel chronicles the travels of the young narrator as he leaves his hometown and dysfunctional family in Missouri and treks into the South down the Mississippi River. The story gives the reader an uncensored 13-year-old view of pre-war society in the region where, Huck finds, racist sentiment is ingrained in the fabric of life. The novel&#39;s characters and plot are archetypal in its emergence as a new kind of American literature. So, too, are the ultimate messages of acceptance, friendship, hope and independence that are reflective of the struggles of the time period.