The critical climate could hardly anticipate T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway's encomiums 50 years later. In the preface to an English edition, Eliot would speak of ''a master piece. . . . Twain's genius is completely realized,'' and Ernest went further. In ''Green Hills of Africa,'' after disposing of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau, and paying off Henry James and Stephen Crane with a friendly nod, he proceeded to declare, ''All modern American literture comes from one book by Mark Twain called 'Huckleberry Finn.' . . . It's the best book we've had.
All American writing comes from that.
There was nothing before. Obviously, ''Huckleberry Finn'' has passed the test. Mark Twain is doing the kind of writing only Hemingway can do better. Evidently, we must take a look. Tom Sawyer'' and was disappointed.