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,...