Introduction: "The Mississippi Was a Virgin Field" -- "There Is a World of River Stuff to Write About": Reconstructing the Mississippi -- "The Mighty River Lay like an Ocean": Aquatic Adventures for Transatlantic Boys -- "This Ain't That Kind of a River": Life, Death, and Memory on the Mississippi -- "Sometimes We'd Have That Whole River All to Ourselves": Runaways, Roustabouts, and the Limits of Freedom -- "I Went on A-Spinnin' Down de River": Underworlds and Undertows -- Epilogue: "A Black Wall of Night"
Summary:
"Mark Twain's visions of the Mississippi River offer some of the most indelible images in American literature: Huck and Jim floating downstream on their raft, Tom Sawyer and friends becoming pirates on Jackson's Island, the young Sam Clemens himself at the wheel of a steamboat. Through Twain's iconic river books, the Mississippi has become an imagined river as much as a real one. Yet despite the central place that Twain's river occupies in the national imaginary, until now no work has explored the shifting meaning of this crucial connection in a single volume"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.