In his 1876 book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain tells the story of a little boy living up near the Mississippi River. It takes place in the 1840s in St. Petersburg, which is modelled after Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri. Throughout the book, Tom Sawyer goes on a number of adventures, frequently alongside his pal Huckleberry Finn. Though it started out as a commercial flop, the book eventually became Twain's best-selling book while he was still alive. ?The novel is regarded by many as a masterpiece of American literature, despite being eclipsed by its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. ?One of the first books to be typewritten was this one.