Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians

By: Mark Twain, Lee Nelson

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

In 1885, while The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was becoming one of the best-selling American classics of modern times, Mark Twain began this sequel in which Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim head west on the trail of two white girls kidnapped by Sioux warriors.

Fifteen-thousand words into the work, Twain stopped in the middle of a sentence, never to go back. The unfinished story sat on dusty shelves for more than 100 years until author Lee Nelson decided to finish it. The result is a story of adventure, wit, and wisdom with listeners saying they can't tell where Twain leaves off and Nelson begins.

©2003 Lee Nelson; 1968 University of California Press, the Mark Twain Papers, and the Mark Twain Foundation (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Of the half-dozen recorded renditions I've auditioned, this is the one that best expresses the brilliance of Twain's rendering of dialect and a rural boy's sensibility." ( AudioFile)

Fantastic adventures and continuation

Narration is excellent and brings you into the story. Flawless transition from the original text to Lee Nelson's continuation.
The story gets into a humourous view on the settling of the wild west, but still shows the harsh, unforgiving reality that it was. 10/10

Best Mark Twain of all of Mark Twain's...

This book was better than The Adventures of Huck Finn, which most consider to be Twain's masterpiece. I liked Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians more than any other Twain work. Even if you only read the 15,000 words that Twain wrote, which is roughly 25% of the book (two hours of listening pleasure), you will be amazed by Twain at his adult best. This is no juvenile fiction...like Twain's other works...Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer Abroad, Tom Sawyer Detective, etc,..., . The book examines how each character grows and develops from the childish personalities exhibited in other books, into fully developed complex adults. Tom comes to realize that 'book' Indians in the adventure novels he has read, do not act like 'real' Indians in the real world, and 'book' women in his romanticized novels do not act like 'real' women. Like Don Quixote awakening from his fantasies, Tom comes to realize that he can't believe everything he reads in books, James Fennimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott, being just some of the authors that Twain skewers. And Huck comes to realize how to rely on his own instinct for what's right and wrong, rather than be guided by the often intolerant and bigoted social morays of his time, . Even former slave Jim grows and develops an awareness of what being free really means, after living among the wild Indians and being treated like an equal for the first time in his life.

If you're expecting the same old juvenile, silly nonsense Twain usually put out, hold onto your seats when you read this one. Best book I've listened to on Audible. Best Twain book I've ever read.

Huck and his Navy Colt

great book Huck Finn and Tom go on Grand adventures with Indians and mormans and evil trapper

I loved this book

Worth repeating. A real roller coaster ride of a read. I think Mark Twain would approve.

Great adventure!

I enjoyed this one as much as any of Twain's works, and I couldn't tell where Twain's work stopped and Nelson's began. I hope Mr Nelson does a sequel, or series, maybe the Finns and Sawyers - the next generation.

A suspenseful story with historical insight

My children,ages 9 and 12 enjoyed all of the Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn books so we embarked on this story. I did not like the departure into more themes like rape and child molestation and felt this inclusion from the other author was overly graphic and unnecessary. Overall, it was an enjoyable listen.

Just shockingly good

I never thought I could like a non canonical ending to a book before but this is my favorite version of Huck in any of the books. It really feels like a great evolution of his character from becoming a hero saving Jim in the original tales to really coming into his own here.

Two Authors That Mixed Quite Well

Before reading this book, I never knew that Mark Twain hadn't finished any books. Not sure why I didn't think of that though, several other authors hadn't. Likewise, I wasn't sure how much the individual authors had written. I am grateful that Twain had been able to introduce the thought that Peggy was still worthy of Huck's love in spite of some other happenings. Much of what transpired there cemented in my mind that Huck was by far the superior character in my book. Lee Nelson faithfully carried that on and largely kept the same feeling to the book. I tend to think that Twain would have ended this story with a successful rescue of Peggy from the Indians, but I really enjoyed Nelson's story too and hope to read more by him.

pretty good

Trying to write in another authors voice is not easy, as an example take the attempt by Robert Goldsborough to copy Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels, they just aren't the same and leave the reader flat. So I was a little skeptical that anyone could marry up with Mark Twains writing but Lee Nelson has written a pretty good story ending and I agree that one can't really tell where Twain ends and Nelson begins. I think that one of the reasons why this has been successful is that Nelson has a good historical feel for that period of the old West and part of what made Twains work interesting was his detailed description of the times and the places where he's set his characters. One should also give credit to Nelson for being a good storyteller in his own right and while the second half of the book is not what Twain would have written it still is a plausible and interesting outcome given Twain's start. Nelson also maintains Twains style of keeping the action flowing by continuously introducing new settings and conflct. All in all very satisfying and for fans of Twains work, worth listening to just for the first 15000 words.

Good but not great

The story just doesn't have the human insights or the comedy one expects from a good Twain story. The narration is fine.