At 8:52 AM 2/5/97, John Bird wrote:
>In his recent review of Shelley Fisher-Fishkin's latest book, Wesley
Britton
>asked in closing for opinions about _Was Huck Black?_, specifically
whether, as
>Shelley apparently claims, that most Mark Twain scholars accept her thesis
that
>Sociable Jimmy was the model for Huck.

Are we talking about the dialect, or the character himself?

It has been my understanding, based on Twain's own words (I don't have the
citation here, but read it the notes to Norton's critical edition of HF),
that Tom Blankenship was the model for Huck. Twain goes on to say that Tom
B. had become Justice of the Peace in Montana, and was "a respected
citizen."

Stanton E. Nesbit
Eau Claire North High School
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire