Where the Wild Things Are: Literature, Boys, and Manhood

Few boys had as many adventures as Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. A detail of the first edition frontispiece, 1876, from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Public Domain

Mark Twain ends the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with these words:

“And so there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble that was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it and ain’t agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”