"Frank F." was a substitution Clemens made to protect Blankenship's
privacy when he prepared this part of the text for publication in the
North American Review in 1907. Kiskis's edition reprints the text as
published in that journal.
Textual variations like this are most easily understood in the Web version
of the Mark Twain Project's critical edition: in this case, at
http://tinyurl.com/83zlgm8
--
Benjamin Griffin
Mark Twain Project
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
> It's seems to have become common wisdom that Huck Finn was modeled on
> one Tom Blankenship. Yet, in Twain's autobiography (Kiskis, 1990 pg
> 191) Twain states he was actually Frank F., although the note therein
> refers back to Tom. Who was this Frank F.? Was he the actual son of
> Jimmy Finn? Later in the same dictation it is Frank F that became a
> Justice of the Peace.
>