What is the name of the river in Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'?

The river in Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is the Mississippi River. Huck Finn and the escaped enslaved man Jim travel together on a raft, moving down the river through the antebellum American South.

The Mississippi is more than a backdrop: it represents movement, danger, freedom, and escape from the rules of settled society. Huck and Jim hope to reach Cairo, Illinois, near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where Jim plans to continue toward freedom. Their journey instead becomes increasingly complicated as floods, fog, criminals, and slave hunters disrupt their plans.

The novel was published in Britain in 1884 and in the United States in 1885. It is narrated in Huck’s distinctive vernacular voice and is often praised for its portrayal of boyhood and its satire of racism and social hypocrisy. The Missouri and Ohio rivers may cause confusion because both are geographically connected to the Mississippi, but the river carrying Huck and Jim is the Mississippi.