Mark Twain pen-name of Samuel Longhorn Clemens	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and   Huckleberry Finn

Charles Daney's Being and Nakedness site provides information about Samuel Longhorn Clemens, who wrote his novels The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn under the name Mark Twain. These 19th century classics deserve to be read for their excellent story-telling and wonderful characters. The nudity in them is the freedom from clothes which is so natural to children, but is normally so unnatural - alas - for adults. The original publications are long out of copyright, and the texts are available in a number of forms from several publishers - I strongly recommend seeking out editions with either contemporary illustrations, or annotations, or both.

There is almost no nudity in the two books. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom and his friends get unselfconsciously naked during their time camping out on an island - surely unexceptional for a small group of pre-pubescent boys away from both adults and girls? Of more interest are the mentions in Huckleberry Finn, showing Huck and Jim dispensing with clothes while rafting down the Mississipi. They are unobserved at this time (they travel only at night), so cannot upset the sensibilities of others. Most significantly, Huck says "I didn't go much on clothes, no how" - a naturist sentiment if ever I heard one!

Samuel Clemens appears as a character in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld stories - but so do many other historical characters, so there's no particular naturist fiction link.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2005 July 31.
 
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