In 1885 while The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was becoming one of the best-selling American classics of modern times, Mark Twain began this sequel in which Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and Jim head west on the trail of two white girls kidnapped by Sioux warriors, learning the hard way that “book Injuns and real Injuns ain’t the same.” Fifteen thousand words into the work, Twain stopped in the middle of a sentence, never to go back; the unfinished story sitting on dusty shelves for more than a hundred years. Handwritten manuscript page, in pencil, on a 5.75 x 9 off-white sheet of an unfinished and unpublished story entitled Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer Among The Indians. Manuscript reads, in full, “that may be the explanation of it, but as long as I don’t know thats’ thats’ [sic] the way of it, I ain't going to take any chances. I’ll just do the other thing: I’ll consider that this woman is a new prisoner & that her being here means that there’s trouble broke out betwixt the Injuns & the whites & so I’ll act according. That is, I’ll keep shy of the Injuns till I’ve fixed myself up a little, so’s to fit...” Pencil notation at top of page indicates this is page number 223. Clemens wrote only about six more paragraphs for the story, before breaking the story off in mid-sentence, never to be finished. Looking at the larger manuscript indicates the preceding portion was from the character mountain man Brace Johnson. The complete part of the manuscript was printed in the December 20, 1968 issue of Life magazine, which provides further insight concerning the origins of the story and the possible reasons Clemens decided not to finish the story. Accompanied by a 1933 letter of provenance from Clemens’ daughter, Clara Gabrilowitsch, which reads, “I have managed to find a page of manuscript which my father wrote long ago and am sending it to you, as you seem to have this desire, namely, the possession of his manuscript, firmly set in your heart.” In 2002, the story was completed by Western auhor Lee Nelson, who read the manuscript in Life magazine in 1968, while in a barbershop awaiting a haircut. The book went on to win first place for historical fiction in Foreword Magazine’s book of the year award competition. Also accompanied by a complete edition of the December 20, 1968 Life magazine, containing the story. Two horizontal folds, small area of paper loss to top right corner and some scattered mild soiling, otherwise fine condition. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
