Quick Facts
- NAME: Mark Twain
- OCCUPATION: Writer
- BIRTH DATE: November 30, 1835
- DEATH DATE: April 21, 1910
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Florida, Missouri
- PLACE OF DEATH: Redding, Connecticut
Best Known For
Author of "the Great American Novel," Mark Twain wrote the classics Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
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Mark Twain - Full Episode (43:40)
Mark Twain. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 02:53, Feb 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564
Mark Twain [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564, February 08
" Mark Twain." 2012. Biography.com 08 Feb 2012, 02:53 http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564
' Mark Twain', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564 [accessed Feb 08, 2012]
" Mark Twain," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564 (accessed Feb 08, 2012).
Mark Twain [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 08]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564.
Mark Twain, http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564 (last visited Feb 08, 2012).
Mark Twain, http://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564 (last visited Feb 08, 2012).
Synopsis
Mark Twain was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age", and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature." Born during a visit by Halley's Comet, he died on its return.
Contents
Quotes
"This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
"Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries."
"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions..."
Early Life
Writing grand tales about Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the mighty Mississippi River, Mark Twain explored the American soul with wit, buoyancy, and a sharp eye for truth. He became nothing less than a national treasure.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, later known as Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835, in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri, the sixth child of John and Jane Clemens. When he was 4-years-old, the Clemens clan moved to nearby Hannibal, a bustling town of 1,000 people. John Clemens worked as a storekeeper, lawyer, judge, and land speculator, dreaming of wealth but never achieving it, sometimes finding it hard to feed his family. He was an unsmiling fellow; according to one legend, young Sam never saw him laugh. His mother by contrast, was a fun-loving, tenderhearted homemaker who whiled away many a winter's night for her family by telling stories. She became head of the household in 1847 when John died unexpectedly. The Clemens family "now became almost destitute," writes biographer Everett Emerson, and was forced into years of economic struggle — a fact that would shape the career of Mark Twain.
Sam Clemens lived in Hannibal from age 4 to age 17. The town, situated on the Mississippi River, was in many ways a splendid place to grow up. Steamboats arrived there three times a day, tooting their whistles; circuses, minstrel shows, and revivalists paid visits; a decent library was available; and tradesmen such as blacksmiths and tanners practiced their entertaining crafts for all to see. However, violence was commonplace, young Sam witnessed much death. When he was 9 years old he saw a local man murder a cattle rancher, and at 10 he watched a slave die after a white overseer struck him with a piece of iron.
Life in Hannibal
Hannibal inspired several of Mark Twain's fictional locales, including "St. Petersburg" in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These imaginary river towns are complex places: sunlit and exuberant on the one hand, but also vipers' nests of cruelty, poverty, drunkenness, loneliness, and life-crushing boredom. All of that had been a part of Sam Clemens' boyhood experience.
Sam kept up his schooling until he was around twelve, when, with his father's dead and needing to earn his keep, he found employment as an apprentice printer at the Hannibal Courier, which paid him with a meager ration of food. In 1851, at 15, he got a job as a printer and occasional writer and editor at the Hannibal Western Union, a little newspaper owned by his brother Orion.
Then, in 1857, 21-year-old Clemens fulfilled a dream: He began learning the art of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. A licensed pilot by 1859, he soon found regular employment plying the shoals and channels of the great river. He loved his career — it was exciting, well-paying, and high-status, roughly akin to flying a jetliner today. However, his service was cut short in 1861 by the outbreak
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