The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Two young boys, Thomas "Tom" Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her sister, Miss Watson, is attempting to civilize him. Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. His spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with his gang of self-proclaimed "robbers". However, when the gang's exploits turn out to be nothing worse than disrupting Sunday School outings and stealing paltry items like hymn books (which the Sunday School teacher forces them to return anyway), Huck is again downcast.
However, his life is changed by the sudden reappearance of his shiftless father "Pap", an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing him from acquiring his fortune (he gives all 6,000 dollars to Judge Thatcher), Pap forcibly gains custody of him and moves him to his backwoods cabin. Though Huck prefers this to his life with the widow, he resents his father's drunken violence and his habit of keeping him locked inside the cabin. During one of his father's absences Huck escapes, elaborately fakes his own murder and sets off down the Mississippi River.
