In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary "Pike-County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
The Author
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Chicago: Mark Twain, "Explanatory," The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Original Sources, accessed July 18, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=GXE189XBG6S7JUK.
MLA: Twain, Mark. "Explanatory." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Original Sources. 18 Jul. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=GXE189XBG6S7JUK.
Harvard: Twain, M, 'Explanatory' in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Original Sources, retrieved 18 July 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=GXE189XBG6S7JUK.