Also (and originally) the poor,
mischievous but
lovable protagonist of a
novel, (omigod it's NODED! Yay!)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by
Mark Twain (
Samuel Clemens) in
1876, and his top seller ever after. Tom was loosely based on Clemens' and others' youthful experiences in and around
Hannibal,
Missouri, a
Mississippi River town then at the
American frontier. This book also introduces
Huckleberry Finn, who later got his own book.
Tom was a rare point of fresh youthful idealism in Twain's otherwise cynical worldview.