Mark Twains tale of a boys picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work had done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the sivilizing Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous Duke and Dauphin . Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious undercurrents – of slavery, adult control and, above all, of Hucks struggle between his instinctive goodness and the corrupt values of society, which threaten his deep and enduring friendship with Jim.