The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

So we enter a day of endless possibility in Mark Twain's classic tale. He called it a 'hymn to boyhood', and this unforgettable story of a boy growing up in a small town on the Mississippi has become an all-time favourite, not just in America, but around the world. The original boyhood hero, the irrepressible Tom is an irresistible mix of exuberance, bad behaviour and bravado. Whether he is tricking his schoolmates into whitewashing a fence, running away to become a pirate with his friend Huck Finn, witnessing a murder, discovering treasure, or falling in love with the lovely Becky Thatcher, trouble, good humour and adventure are never far away.

Robert Ingpen's illustrations create a real sense of time, place and character: each image an enchanting evocation of a distant time in the American South.

About the Author

Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910). He was born and brought up in the American state of Missouri and, because of his father's death, he left school to earn his living when he was only twelve. He was a great adventurer and travelled round America as a printer, prospected for gold and set off for South America to earn his fortune. He returned to become a steam-boat pilot on the Mississippi River, close to where he had grown up. The Civil War put an end to steam-boating and Clemens briefly joined the Confederate army - although the rest of his family were Unionists! He had already tried his hand at newspaper reporting and now became a successful journalist. He started to use the alias Mark Twain during the Civil War and it was under this pen name that he became a famous travel writer. He took the name from his steam-boat days - it was the river pilots' cry to let their men know that the water was two fathoms deep. Mark Twain was always nostalgic about his childhood and in 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, based on his own experiences. The book was soon recognised as a work of genius and eight years later the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was published. The great writer Ernest Hemingway claimed that 'All modern literature stems from this one book.'

About the Illustrator

Robert Ingpen was born in 1936 in Geelong, Australia. He studied illustration art and book design at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In 1986 he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his contribution to children's literature and has been honoured with Membership of the Order of Australia. A world-renowned artist and author, he has designed, illustrated and written over 100 books. This series of classic works illustrated by Robert includes Treasure Island,Peter Pan and Wendy,The Jungle Book,The Wind in the Willows and A Christmas Carol. Robert lives and works in Anglesea, near his home town of Geelong.