In a radical departure from standard editions, the coming-of-age story that introduces Mark Twain's two most enduring literary characters--Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn--is published here with its disturbing racial labels translated as "slave" and "Indian. " Everything else is completely intact in a novel that Twain termed a "hymn to boyhood. " Tom and Huck fish and swim in the Mississippi River, search for buried treasure, and hide in a haunted house. Around the edges of this idyllic boy-life, however, loom dangerous events in the fictional village of St. Petersburg: Tom and Huck witness a midnight murder in a graveyard, the killer escapes from the courtroom while Tom is testifying, and two sinister villains plot robbery and revenge against a wealthy widow. Readers can follow the boys' adventures without confronting the dozens of racial slurs that are available in other editions of the book. The editor supplies a historical and literary introduction as well as a guide to Twain's satirical targets.