The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is a novel about a young boy growing up in the fictional small town of Hannibal, Missouri along the Mississippi River during the 1840s.

Samuel Longhorn Clemens better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. After an apprenticeship with a printer, Twain worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper of his older brother, Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He is celebrated as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature".