Twain’s seven books here run from the travel writing of 1869 to A Connecticut Yankee in 1889, and the two Mississippi novels sit in the middle of that stretch.
Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, is the shorter and sunnier of the pair, and it is the one to read before Huckleberry Finn rather than after.
Twain’s seven books here divide into travel books and fiction. The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It and Life on the Mississippi came out of his years as a reporter and a river pilot; Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee came out of his childhood in Hannibal and his later anger at the century he lived in.
Length points the way in. Tom Sawyer is 70,000 words and about four hours, Huckleberry Finn 116,000 and six, while the travel books run from 148,000 to 193,000 and take eight to eleven hours each. Read Tom Sawyer first if you want the joke; read Huckleberry Finn first if you want the book, and accept that the last chapters are the price of the first thirty.
Start here: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. At 70,000 words it takes about four hours, and it introduces the town, the river and the boy that the later novel quietly dismantles.
Mark Twain: which book first
Every Mark Twain title on editions.ink, with the reading time for each. The first row is the one to start with.
| Book | Year | Words | Read time |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — start here | 1876 | 70,000 | 4 h |
| The Prince and the Pauper | 1881 | 66,000 | 4 h |
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 1884 | 116,000 | 6 h |
| A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court | 1889 | 121,033 | 7 h |
| Life on the Mississippi | 1883 | 148,000 | 8 h |
| Roughing It | 1872 | 165,000 | 9 h |
| The Innocents Abroad | 1869 | 193,000 | 11 h |
| All seven | 879,033 | 49 h |
What to read after the first one
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — the greater book, and a different kind of book: first person, in Huck’s voice, with the humour carrying the argument
- The Prince and the Pauper — the 1881 historical switch story, the easiest of his plots
If you would rather see the whole shelf in chronological order first, the Mark Twain books in order page lists every title by publication year with the same word counts. The Mark Twain author page collects all the editions in one place,, and the author index has the other writers on the site. If you want a follow-up by a different author, the read next guide pairs ten classics with what to read after them.
Questions readers ask
Which Mark Twain book should I read first?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876, 70,000 words). It is shorter and lighter than Huckleberry Finn, and it sets up the same town and river.
Is Huckleberry Finn a sequel?
Yes. It follows Tom Sawyer, and Huck narrates it himself. Reading Tom Sawyer first makes the change in voice obvious.
Are these Twain editions free?
Yes, complete DRM-free downloads with word counts and reading times shown on each page.