| Also (and originally) the poor, mischievous but lovable protagonist of a novel, (omigod it's NODED! Yay!) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in 1876, and his top seller ever after. Tom was loosely based on Clemens' and others' youthful experiences in and around Hannibal, Missouri, a Mississippi River town then at the American frontier. This book also introduces Huckleberry Finn, who later got his own book.
Tom was a rare point of fresh youthful idealism in Twain's otherwise cynical worldview. | 
