Tom Sawyer, a mischievous orphan taken in by his Aunt Polly, goes through a series of adventures involving his friends, Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. Tom is an escape master, and a professional trickster. He escapes punishment many times by his tricks. Though he is often foolish and unpredictable, he also is somewhat smart and has a good sense of humor. When not trying to win his sweetheart, Becky Thatcher, Tom is either getting into mischief or going on an adventure. Many times, Tom suddenly changes from his grinning self into a fearsome pirate or Indian. His laugh changes into a bloodcurdling yell or a barking captain's voice. Tom Sawyer's main doings are racing bugs, impressing girls with fights and stunts in the schoolyard, getting lost in a cave, and playing pirates on the Mississippi River. The best known passage in the book describes how Sawyer persuades his friends to whitewash, or paint, a long fence for him.

Literary significance and reception

The sales of Tom Sawyer were lukewarm at first. It initially sold less than a third as many copies as Twain's Innocents Abroad. By the time of Mark Twain's death, however, Tom Sawyer was both an American classic and a bestseller. It is arguably the work for which Twain is best known today.

Tom Sawyer also appears in three other Mark Twain books:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)
Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
Of these, Huckleberry Finn, in which Tom Sawyer is only a minor character, is considered to have by far the most literary merit.

Film adaptations

The story of Tom Sawyer has been filmed or animated multiple times since its initial publication. Some of the film adaptations of Twain's novel include:

• A 1907 silent version released by the Paramount studio
• A 1917 silent version directed by William Desmond Taylor, starring Jack Pickford as Tom
• A 1930 version directed by John Cromwell, starring Jackie Coogan as Tom
• In 1938 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was filmed in Technicolor by the Selznick Studio. It starred Tommy Kelly as Tom and was directed by Norman Taurog. Most notable was the cave sequence designed by William Cameron Menzies.
• A 1947 Soviet Union version, directed by Lazar Frenkel and Gleb Zatvornitsky
• A 1968 French/German made-for-television miniseries, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, starring Roland Demongeot as Tom and Marc Di Napoli as Huck
• A 1973 musical version with songs by Richard and Robert Sherman, starring Johnny Whitaker as Tom and a young Jodie Foster as Becky Thatcher. There was also a TV movie version released that same year which starred Buddy Ebsen as Muff Potter.
• Tom Sawyer no Boken (1980), a Japanese anime TV series by Nippon Animation, part of the World Masterpiece Theater; aired in the United States on HBO
• A 1984 Canadian claymation version produced by Hal Roach studios
• Tom and Huck (1995), starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Tom and Brad Renfro as Huck Finn
• A 2000 animated adaptation, featuring the characters as anthropomorphic animals with an all-star voice cast, including country singers Rhett Akins (as Tom), Mark Wills (as Huck Finn), Lee Ann Womack, Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr. as well as Betty White as Aunt Polly