Terrell Dempsey says:
"This remarkable book should be required reading for anyone interested in Twain, and for anyone teaching Twain. And it should once and for all shame the tourist mecca of Hannibal, Missouri into replacing its neglect of its slave past with an accurate and respectful acknowledgment of this painful chapter of history--a chapter of history that made an indelible impression on the child who became Mark Twain."
T.S. Elliot says:
"It is Huck who gives the book style. The River gives the book its form. But for the River, the book might be only a sequence of adventures with a happy ending. A river, a very big and powerful river, is the only natural force that can wholly determine the course of human peregrination.... Thus the River makes the book a great book... Mark Twain is a native, and the River God is his God."
On the other hand, John Wallace says:
" [it is] the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written."
Hartford Daily Times says:
"Everybody will want to see Huckleberry Finn, Mr. Clemens's story--a sort of continuation of his "Tom Sawyer." It is a tale of the Mississippi River, as that mighty stream and its commerce and travel presented themselves to the observer away back in Clay and Polk times, or thereabout. It is a good book, and it does teach a certain moral, notwithstanding the author's disclaimer; it teaches, without seeming to do it, the virtue of honest simplicity, directness,truth. As to stirring incidents, the story is full of them. It will hugely please the boys, and also interest people of more mature years. "
Stephen F. Railton says:
"Twain lets Huck tell the story himself," Most previous American fiction uses a narrative voice that is heavily derived from British literature, but since Huck doesn't know those books, his language is in immediate contact with the American environment he describes."
The Boston Herald says:
"Mark Twain's "Royalty on the Mississippi" has a trifle of "too muchness of that sort of thing," which is the prevailing characteristic of that sort of writing. It pitched in but one key, and that is the key of a vulgar and abhorrent life."
Boston Evening Traveller says:
"Mr. Clemens has contributed some humorous literature that is excellent and will hold its place, but his Huckleberry Finn appears to be singularly flat, stale
and unprofitable. The book is sold by subscription."
and unprofitable. The book is sold by subscription."