| Tom Sawyer, Detective | |
| Author: | Mark Twain |
| Illustrator: | A.B. Frost[1] |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Tom Sawyer |
| Genre: | Detective fiction |
| Publisher: | Harper Brothers |
| Release Date: | 1896 |
| Media Type: | |
| Preceded By: | Tom Sawyer Abroad |
| Wikisource: | Tom Sawyer, Detective |
Tom Sawyer, Detective is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain. It is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894). Tom Sawyer attempts to solve a mysterious murder in this burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time. Like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn.
In 1909, Danish schoolmaster Valdemar Thoresen claimed, in an article in the magazine Maaneds, that the plot of the book had been plagiarized from Steen Blicher's story The Vicar of Weilby. Blicher's work had been translated into German, but not into English, and Twain's secretary wrote Mr. Thoresen a letter, stating, "Mr. Clemens is not familiar with Danish and does not read German fluently, and has not read the book you mention, nor any translation or adaptation of it that he is aware of. The matter constituting 'Tom Sawyer, Detective,' is original with Mr. Clemens, who has never been consciously a plagiarist."[2]
However, in an opening note in the book preceding the first chapter (as republished by Gutenberg Press), the author states:
As the story material (the 1626 trial of Pastor Søren Jensen Quist of Vejlby) predated Blicher, Twain had as much right to use it as Blicher.