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Huck, Jim, James, and Frederick Douglass

About this event

Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been loved and hated, praised and banned ever since it was first published. While it is emphatically not a children’s story, it does include some idyllic river passages, together with aspects of both picaresque and coming-of-age novels, and interludes of scathing satire. Twain’s use of dialect enriches the novel, although the biases and language of the world Twain portrays can be very difficult to encounter. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not an easy novel, but it is rich, ironic, and often funny as well as painful, and it deserves to be read and discussed.

In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, James, Percival Everett has created something special and exciting — a novel written as a response to and continuation of another novel that also stands alone as a moving and independent literary work. James gives a very different voice to Twain’s runaway slave, Jim, and takes him on a parallel yet often separate journey. Everett’s central character, James, has his own struggles and choices to make. We will discuss this novel both independently and in conjunction with Twain’s novel.

Along with the two novels, we will also read a nonfiction account by a runaway slave, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, which will be a part of our reflections and discussion.

For The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I strongly recommend the Norton Critical Anthology because of the background material included and the survey of the changing views of the novel. James is published by Doubleday and Penguin/Random House in both regular and large-print editions. Any of the many editions of Frederick Douglass’s autobiography will do, including the free versions available online. This is a discussion class.

Instructor Ann Nesslage is a graduate of Vassar, with a M.A. in British literature from Bryn Mawr. Ann retired from Choate Rosemary Hall, where she taught different levels of literature, including British Studies and world literature. She also created electives in fantasy literature, satire, Early Irish and Welsh literature, and other topics. Ann lives in Bremen, where she enjoys reading and gardening and serves on the Bremen Conservation Commission and the library board. She is a member of the CSC Curriculum Committee and the Nominating Committee. Ann enjoys creating new courses for CSC and is excited by the possibilities for discussion created by the juxtaposition of the works included in this fall term course.

Members must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to register for this course.
We will follow the current mask policy of the course site.

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Date and Time

Friday, September 18, 2026, 1:30 PM until Friday, November 6, 2026, 3:30 PM

Location

Bremen Library
204 Waldoboro Road
Bremen
USA

Event Contact(s)

Ann C Nesslage
Instructor

Registration Info

Registration is required and it opens Tuesday, August 11, 2026 at 8:00 AM

Payment In Full In Advance Only

You must be an active CSC member to register for this course.

Registration cancellations will be accepted until Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 11:45 PM

Cancellation Policy:

A member may cancel a course registration up to 3 days prior to the start of class and will receive a course credit that can be used for a future registration. No refunds will be given.