Also Hemingway remarks in Green Hills of Africa that "The good writers
are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain" and goes onto say that
"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called
Huckleberry Finn.  If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is
stolen from the boys.  That is the real end.  The rest is just cheating.
But it's the best book we've had.  All American writing comes from that.
There was nothing before.  There has been nothing as good since."

(from page 22 of Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa. Published by Charles
Scribner's Sons 1963)