But he decides that he cannot stand it; he stages his own murder and, with runaway slave Jim, goes booming down the Mississippi on a raft-free of clothes, school, money and other adult inventions-and the greatest adventure story in American literature begins. For as Huck and Jim drift further south into slave country, their life is complicated by encounters with con artists, fueding families and girls in distress, until it seems that the civilization that Huck left behind will overtake the boy at last and force him to choose his manhood. Will he become a 'civilized' man, or a good one?
