In his 1876 book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain describes the upbringing of a little child beside the Mississippi river. It takes place in the fictitious town of St. Petersburg in the 1840s. Tom and his companion Huck go on a number of adventures in the book. It started out as a failure but ultimately became Twain's best-selling book during his lifetime. Satire, humour, and social criticism all appear in the book. Mark Twain was one of the most significant writers of American literature because of these aspects of his writings.