Since the day of its publication, Huckleberry Finn has been a subject of
intense moral debate. Early critics termed the language of the book crude
and vulgar. Huck was seen as the uncouth rebel with a strong racist streak.
The library of Concord even banned the book calling it too coarse' and
trashy' (Boston Daily Globe) However the book survived such scathing
criticism and won the hearts of millions over the course of next few
decades. Some literary scholars and critics played a major role, who, after
the book's release, gave it the attention and affection it deserved and
turned this so-called trashy book into one of the best and most widely read
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY (1884) for example opined that, "the book is Mark
Twain at his best, and remarking that Jim and Huckleberry are real
creations, and the worthy peers of the illustrious Tom Sawyer."
Similarly the book managed to win the favor of other important critics and
reviewers including Brander Mathews who in 1885, compared Huckleberry Finn
to its predecessor Tom Sawyer and concluded, "â€though Huckleberry Finn may
not quite reach these two highest points of Tom Sawyer, we incline to the
opinion that the general level of the later story is perhaps higher than
that of the earlier" He felt that unlike the first book, Huckleberry Finn
was a more mature attempt of the author to comment on race and slavery from
the viewpoint of the characters. Mathews argued that in this book, "We see
everything through his eyes--and they are his eyes and not a pair of Mark
Twain's spectacles. And the comments on what he sees are his comments--the
comments of an ignorant, superstitious, sharp, healthy boy, brought up as
Huck Finn had been brought up; they are not speeches put into his mouth by
Fifty years later, the book was still being widely read, discussed and
debated. Critics were aware of the problems that the book
...