Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...

Eighteen-year-old Henry Fleming is a private in the Union Army's 304th New York Regiment. Having enlisted despite his mother's protest, Henry internally questions if his bravery will hold true in the face of battle. Determining that all hope is lost during his regiment's first skirmish, Henry flees in the midst of a bleak and bloody situation. However, as he reaches the rear of the army, he learns that the Union has actually won the battle. Overcome...