SOURCE: "Tom Sawyer, Delinquent," in her Claremont Essays, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964, pp. 143-52.

Trilling is an American editor and critic. In the following essay, which first appeared as a preface to the 1962 Crowell-Collier edition of Tom Sawyer, she analyzes Twain's portrayal of childhood and parental responsibility in the novel.

Mark Twain once said of Tom Sawyer, "It is not a boys' ook at all. It will be read only by adults." We can suppose he was speaking defensively, with the extravagance of an irritated author. He had brought to the book his full powers of serious communication and he had no wish for it to be thought of as a mere children's book, what publishers call a "juvenile." Yet ever since its publication in 1876 until quite recently, the audience for Tom Sawyer has of course been primarily a youthful one. In fact, the American public has regarded it...