An invaluable companion to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's inimitable portrait of ‘the great Father of Waters’. Part memoir, part travelogue, it expresses the full range of Twain's literary personality, and remains the most vivid, boisterous and provocative account of the cultural and societal history of the Mississippi Valley, from ‘the golden age’ of steamboating to the violence wrought by the Civil War.

This new edition of Life on the Mississippi contains a comprehensive introduction, extensive annotations and a guide to further reading designed to appeal to both the student and the general reader.