The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (published 1876) is a very well-known and popular story concerning American youth. Mark Twain's lively tale of the scrapes and adventures of boyhood is set in St. Petersburg- Missouri- where Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn have the kinds of adventures many boys can imagine: racing bugs during class- impressing girls- especially Becky Thatcher- with fights and stunts in the schoolyard- getting lost in a cave- and playing pirates on the Mississippi River. One of the most famous incidents in the book describes how Tom persuades his friends to do a boring- hateful chore for him: whitewashing (i.e.- painting) a fence. This was the first novel to be written on a typewriter. (Summary from Wikipedia)