“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” enjoys acclaim as the “Great American Novel,” its title character a uniquely beloved figure in our national heritage.

Author Mark Twain’s riverfront Missouri boy was poor in manners and material wealth, but rich in spirit and charisma. 

Huckleberry Finn “is part of the tapestry of not just American culture but American education,” said Matthew Seybold, scholar-in-residence at the Center for Mark Twain Studies (www.marktwainstudies.com) at Elmira College in Elmira, New York.

He also told Fox News Digital in an interview, “It is inescapably and irrepressibly American in all its beauty and horror.”

“All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

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Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter with Fox News Digital.