Authenticity, Adaptive Memory, and the Reinvention of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

This chapter explores the idea of authenticity and its relationship to the way in which canonical texts are remembered and recreated. My discussion focuses on Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and incorporates analysis of key adaptations of the novel for television (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1986, dir. Hunt) and in print (James by Percival Everett, 2024). The chapter places these adaptations in dialogue with the concept of adaptive memory first elaborated by James Nairne, Sarah, Thompson, and Josefa Pandeirada in 2007. In the context of evolutionary psychology, their research argues that humans use memory not simply to recall past events, but to improve their fitness for reproduction. This chapter examines how adaptations of Huckleberry Finn have remembered the novel at different historical moments, often responding to debates around racism and censorship, and provoking questions on how ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ adaptations should be. My analysis reflects notably on the way in which adaptive practices can create ‘false memories’ of their source material, deliberate or unconscious ‘misrememberings’ of the text which may be deemed ‘inauthentic’ but which nonetheless help to perpetuate its artistic afterlife.