Hannibal, Huck & Tom’s (1969) Relation to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians, and Other Unfinished Stories (1989, 2009)

Originally published in 1969 by UC Press, the Mark Twain Project’s Hannibal, Huck & Tom (abbreviated hereafter as HH&T) contains edited texts of unpublished writings relating to Clemens’s childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, and the two iconic characters inspired by his experiences there, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In 1989, the Mark Twain Project edited and published through UC Press Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians, and Other Unfinished Stories (abbreviated hereafter as Ind) as part of the Mark Twain Library series. As stated in the “Note on the Text'' for the 1989 volume, the editors conceived Ind as a selection of “the best of what Mark Twain wrote—but did not publish—about the Matter of Hannibal.” Ind reproduces seven (out of ten) texts previously published in HH&T: “Villagers of 1840—3,” “Jane Lamption Clemens,” “Tupperville-Dobbsville,” “Clairvoyant,” Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians, “Doughface” (retitled “Huck Finn” in Ind), and Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy. According to the “Note on the Text,” these texts were reproduced “virtually without resetting” the texts, though “piecemeal resetting has nevertheless been required.” Project editors explained and reported changes made to the texts previously published in HH&T in the apparatus notes for Ind, which the user of MTPO may consult in the digital text of Ind, published on MTPO in 2009.

While the Ind texts technically supersede the HH&T texts, Ind does not offer full editorial apparatuses for the seven texts it republishes, as HH&T does; the apparatuses in Ind account for emendations made to the HH&T texts only. HH&T also features its own general introduction, an appendix of Clemens’s working notes, and three texts not republished in Ind: “A Human Bloodhound,” “Tom Sawyer’s Gang Plans a Naval Battle,” and “Tom Sawyer: A Play.”

Differences between the HH&T Electronic Text (2023) and Printed Volume (1969)

With three exceptions, the electronic HH&T reproduces the text of the 1969 printed volume without change, excluding even the textual corrections made in Ind. The exceptions are

1) a comma, rather than a period, follows the phrase “find him in the dark” at the foot of p. 126 because what appears to be a period in the print has been deemed a defective comma, which is required by the sense;

2) an abbreviation (MTLP) used in a footnote on p. 145 was not defined in the print edition. The electronic edition now defines it in the list of abbreviations (p. xi);

3) an abbreviation (MTBM) used on p. 356 is an error. The correct abbreviation (MTBus) has replaced it.