Mark Twain is one of the greatest writers in American history. Many consider Twain to be the father of American literature as his timeless novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are still among the most widely read books today. Twain's writing is well known for both its humor and its social criticism. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is centered around a young boy growing up near the Mississippi River in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri which is based off Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and it is also one of the first books in American literature to use regional dialect throughout.