In 1936, the Heritage Press, a publisher of fine editions, commissioned Norman Rockwell to illustrate Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer; four years later, they asked him to illustrate The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as well. For each book, Rockwell created eight full-color paintings and numerous pen-and-ink drawings, the product of extensive on-the-ground research in Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Famously, Rockwell even tried to buy some Hannibal residents' old clothes, to dress his models in.

For years, the Rockwell editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been unavailable in stores. Now, Abbeville Press is proud to reissue them as a handsome new clothbound set. The color plates are reproduced from new photography of Rockwell's original paintings, the typesetting has been done anew to a high standard, and new introductions--illustrated with Rockwell's rarely seen preliminary sketches--examine this unique encounter between two legendary chroniclers of America.

Publisher's note: These volumes present Mark Twain's text unabridged and unedited, as it appeared in the original American editions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).