This Week In Southern History: Feb. 18, 1885 - Mark Twain Publishes Huckleberry Finn

This week in Southern History, we go all the way back to February 18th, 1885, and here’s what the world looked like then!:

Dr. William W. Grant makes history when he performs the world’s first successful appendectomy on English watercolorist Mary Gartside.

Over in France, Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux save young Joseph Meister’s life after he was bitten by a rabid dog thanks to the efficacy of their new Rabies Vaccine.

Also, in 1885, According to the US Patent office, Dr. Pepper was served for the first time. Hell of a year for Doctors if you ask me!

Another Doctor would also make history that year… oh maybe not a doctor the way you’re thinking, but a Doctor of Letters, at least according to Oxford University, whom I gather knows a thing or two. This week in southern history, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, released The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is as much a part of our culture as is Coca-Cola, Santa Clause, Uncle Sam, Apple Pie, Bald Eagles, going to war, and that picture of Marylin Monroe getting her skirt blown up by a Subway train. Its existence feels ubiquitous, and you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not heard of it, especially here in these southern United States. That was very nearly almost not the case, however…. We’ll get back to that.

Aside from this book being the cultural phenomenon that it very clearly is, It also broke barriers in how stories were told because aside from using his trademark prose, Twain wrote the book in his own unique southern vernacular. Words and phrases were not spelled correctly as much as they were spelled the way he wanted them read. The way that the characters would have said them. I'm sure this drives editors and publishers crazy (I know for a fact it does, that's how I write, ya know?), but from the consumers standpoint, it allows you to feel more immersed in the story.

The book also introduced us to regional dialects in modern-day literature. This may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but as a southerner, and as a writer myself, it does tend to get on your nerves when you watch movies or TV shows where the south is depicted and no matter where the character is from, they have the same drawl. Any southerner worth their salt can usually pick out the difference between a Virginian accent and a Texas accent, but Big Hollywood often cant. Mark Twain, the brilliant man that he is, was able to pinpoint the differences throughout the book whether he was in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on the actual city of Hannibal, Missouri) or later on in the book when he is in Kentucky or Arkansas. Little subtleties like this are Samuel Cle… er, Mark Twain’s genius if you ask me. Not that anyone did!

Mark Twain also did something that was not as commonplace then as maybe it is now, in that because of his overly descriptive language used to paint both the scenery of where the book was taking place and also the way of life of the people therein, he was able to make the location as much of a character as any of the actual people were. We are familiar with this now in shows like Cheers, where the bar has its own personality, or perhaps The Sopranos, when it feels like the state of New Jersey could basically come to life and whack you itself… but in Twain’s day, this was not necessarily the standard practice.

If you don’t know how the book went, please allow me to sum it up as only my dumb ass can!:

So the book opens by recanting us where the story left off in the previous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which also takes place on the banks of the mighty Mississip’! At the end of that book, the poster boy for ADHD, Tom Sawyer, and his best good buddy, Huck Finn, whose family was down on their luck due to having a drunken ne’er-do-well as a father, have just stumbled upon a treasure that some robbers had misplaced because.. well they are dumb dumb robbers, you’ll have that. Huck gives his portion of the riches to the bank, which places it in a trust for him, and he is soon adopted by The Widow Douglas, which is what you called a woman back then when her husband died because even in death, a ladies identity is wrapped up in her man. The Past was something else, I tell ya! Anywho, now we are up to speed!

So The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens, and you won’t believe it , but the train-hopping, treasure robbin’, mischievous little bastard isn’t taking to his new life of law and order (and baths) the way Widow Douglas was hoping he would, and to make things even more complicated, his good for nothing daddy shows back up stinkin’ drunk and wanting Huck’s money. Now, of course, Huck, Tom, and Widow Douglas think this is bullshit, but they are children and a woman, and this was 1885, so who gives a shit what they think? There is a white man wanting something here, and by god, what the white man wants, the white man gets… huzzah!

Surprisingly though, Judge Thatcher was on their side and tried to help Widow Douglas get legal custody of Huck (which, if I’m being honest, I thought was already the case), but some new hotshot judge in town, who I’m sure wasn’t a misogynistic asshole (sarcasm) weren’t having none of it, and went as far as letting Huck’s dad dry out at his house so he could get the kid, and thus the money.

Well, that, of course, went over like a fart in church, and Huck’s daddy went back to being the sloppy drunk only someone in 1885 could fully be. He sticks around town, being a colossal prick and threatening Huck for his money, while Huck, on the other hand, had gotten used to his new way of life and even learned to read! Widow Douglas being the great protector of Huck that she was, tried her damndest to keep his sorry ass daddy away from him. Well, this only enraged Huck’s daddy, and one night he kidnapped Huck and held him hostage in a cabin across the river.

I’m not sure how most kidnappings go, but this one seemed rather unpleasant as Huck would be locked in the cabin all day while his daddy was gone, only to have his ass firmly whooped upon his Daddy’s arrival. Well, Huck had had just bout enough of that, and being the clever boy he is, he decided to escape by faking his own death. Now I don’t exactly know how I would fake my own death, but I bet you I’d try a few other ways before landing on how Huck did it, which was to slaughter a local pig, rub his blood all over the cabin, and then hide in the hills as the townspeople searched the river for his body. Different strokes for different folks and all that jazz.

While the townsfolk presumed him dead, Huck hung out on that island for a few days before running into Jim, a runaway slave. Jim had overheard his owner (feels super disgusting even typing that) Miss Watson talk about possibly selling Jim to another plantation that had a reputation for being bad even compared to other slave plantations (Jesus Christ), and the thought of being treated worse and perhaps being separated from his family was enough to get him to run. Huck was a bit trepidacious bout teaming up with Jim on account of he was a runaway slave and all but hell, it ain't like faking your own death aint also a crime, so do what ya gotta do, son!

While they were out there, a big storm blew through the area and completely flooded the Mississippi. The two runaways, needing shelter, came upon a house that was just floating past them as houses are wont to do during a flood. There was also a raft, so they took that and decided that they would just help themselves to whatever was in the house since they needed some stuff and it ain't like no one else was using the floating house that was headed downstream. Well, as it turns out, someone was using the house, but that sumbitch had been shot dead. Bummer.

Well, I know this all sounds like paradise, but it wasn’t good for long because Huck overheard some folks talking about how they had seen smoke coming from the island and figured it had to be from the runaway slave. Between that and the fact that there was most assuredly a reward out for Jim’s capture, the two decided that it would be best if they hauled ass outta there and made a break for a free state. Now, in case you are somehow unaware of what I mean by “free state,” back then, there were some states where slavery was legal and some states where it wasn’t. It's kind of like how it is with weed now, except for WAY MORE TERRIFYING BECAUSE THESE ARE HUMAN LIVES. Let's also keep in perspective that while some people think slavery was a long time ago, it was only abolished 100 years before the release of Mr. Tambourine Man by the f**kin’ Byrds.

Ok, sorry for that aside. Let's get back on track, shall we?

They head up the river and run into a gang of miscreants who they then essentially rob, but the people they had robbed had robbed the stuff they robbed, to begin with, so like… cancels out, yeah? Huck runs into a bunch of dudes looking for runaway slaves (see: assholes) and has a real back and forth with the angel and devil on his shoulder because while he liked Jim, he was still technically committing a crime. Huck fell on the right side of history, though, and thinking quickly on his feet, told the fellers that he was there with his daddy, who had smallpox. The men quickly ran away because there was a time when even shitty-ass slave sympathizers still believed in deadly diseases—my how things change.

Jim and Huck get separated after a boat crash, and Huck ends up with these super stuffy aristocratic assbags who probably looked like Colonel Sanders and sounded like Delta Burke. They were having some family squabble akin to The Montagues and Capulets, but before shit got too heavy, Jim showed up with a newly repaired raft and the two-headed off again.

Then they run into these Catch-Me-If-You-Can style con artists posing as french royalty or some such and go on a series of adventures scamming people with them. Huck seemed to be having a good time and even pulled a fast one on them, but then the jig was up, and the Duke and Dauphin, as I believe they were calling themselves, sold Jim to a local farmer. Ugh.

Well, Huck ain't no quitter, so he rushes to find Jim, and when he does, he finds out that the people holding him captive are Tom Sawyers Aunt and Uncle! Hot damn boy, talk about bringing it full circle! Mark Twain is on FIRE, yall!

So Tom makes some convoluted plan to save them all, which sort of works until he gets shot. They couldn't find a doctor or anything on account of they are just two boys and a runaway slave trying to make it in this crazy-ass nightmare of a world, so Jim decides to take care of Tom, knowing that it will ultimately end in his capture, which it does.

Well, it turns out that because of a provision made in Miss Watson's will, Jim was a free man all along as she had since died during these adventures. And oh yeah, as Tom is lamenting that his father is probably going to show back up and ruin his life even further, Jim smartens him up to the fact that that feller with the hole in his head that they had seen floating down the river in that house? Yeah, that was his daddy. Aunt Sally then tries to adopt Huck, but Huck says something to the effect of “f*ck this sh*t, I’m going out west!” And so he did. What. A. Damn. Book.

It is said that since Mark Twain grew up in a slave-owning family, Huck Finn’s changing views on the subject were a direct representation of Twain’s real-life moral struggles. It is almost impossible for me to conceive that one could ever be conflicted at all about slavery, but hey, changing for good is better than not changing at all, I suppose, and who the hell am I to judge.

One thing that cannot be argued is that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an objective American Classic. But don't just take my word for it; take it from Papa himself who said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

Obviously, that's a subjective statement, but I, for one, am not going to argue with Ernest F**king Hemingway (Not sure if that was actually his middle name. I just choose to believe it)

Remember earlier in this story when I said that Huckleberry Finn almost missed its American Publication date? Yep, an American classic heralded as so by one of America’s most legendary writers almost never hit our shores because one of the illustrators DREW A DICK PIC IN IT!!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That’s right, y’all, the trope of The Magical Negro and Dick pics…. as prevalent back then as they are today.

Some things truly never change

Till next time, y’all!

‘Corey