When Huckleberry Finn was published in 1882 at least one New England library promptly banned it. This rather pathetic gesture is an apt indication of the larger crisis of culture of the decade, the significance of which extends in many directions - social, philosophical, and theological. In art, it took the form of a stylistic rebellion, a rebellion that ultimately rendered obsolete the cherished styles of Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes, and set a tone which has remained a constant in American literature to this day. This rebellion was brought to a head by one man; and his book, Huckleberry Finn, is pivotal in the history of American literature.