Mark Twain didn’t have to imagine The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — he’d already lived it.

The book was inspired by his own boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River.

The caves, the riverboats, the whitewashed fences — they were all real places from his childhood.

Tom was a mix of Twain himself and the wild, clever friends he grew up with — boys who fished all day, chased adventure, and dreamed big in a small town.

When Twain wrote Tom Sawyer, he wasn’t just telling a story.

He was preserving the freedom, mischief, and wonder of a world that was already disappearing.

A love letter to youth — and to the boy he used to be.

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