Book excerpt: 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.