Genre | Documentary/Biography, Special Interests |
Format | NTSC |
Contributor | Mark Twain |
Language | English |
Number Of Discs | 1 |
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Mark Twain was an American humorist, novelist, and travel writer. Today he is best remembered as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Twain is widely considered one of the greatest American writers of all time.
Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens. Although the exact origins of the name are unknown, it is worth noting that Clemens operated riverboats, and mark twain is a nautical term for water found to be two fathoms (12 feet [3.7 metres]) deep: mark (measure) twain (two).
Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. In 1839 his family moved to the Mississippi port town of Hannibal in search of greater economic opportunities. In Old Times on the Mississippi (1875), he recalled his childhood in Hannibal with fondness.
In 1848 Mark Twain became a printer’s apprentice for the Missouri Courier . Three years later his elder brother, Orion, bought the Hannibal Journal , and Twain began working for him as a typesetter. Occasionally, he contributed sketches and articles to the Journal . Some of his early sketches, such as “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter” (1852), circulated in local newspapers.
During his lifetime Mark Twain wrote more than 20 novels. His most famous novels included The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which are loosely based on Twain’s boyhood experiences in Missouri. Twain also wrote numerous short stories, most notably “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865).
Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910. The last piece of writing he did, evidently, was the short humorous sketch “Etiquette for the Afterlife: Advice to Paine.” The sketch was published posthumously in 1995.
Mark Twain (born November 30, 1835, Florida, Missouri, U.S.—died April 21, 1910, Redding, Connecticut) was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on the Mississippi (1883), and for his adventure stories of boyhood, especially The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). A gifted raconteur, distinctive humorist, and irascible moralist, he transcended the apparent limitations of his origins to become a popular public figure and one of America’s best and most beloved writers.
Samuel Clemens, the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens, was born two months prematurely and was in relatively poor health for the first 10 years of his life. His mother tried various allopathic and hydropathic remedies on him during those early years, and his recollections of those instances (along with other memories of his growing up) would eventually find their way into Tom Sawyer and other writings. Because he was sickly, Clemens was often coddled, particularly by his mother, and he developed early the tendency to test her indulgence through mischief, offering only his good nature as bond for the domestic crimes he was apt to commit. When Jane Clemens was in her 80s, Clemens asked her about his poor health in those early years: “I suppose that during that whole time you were uneasy about me?” “Yes, the whole time,” she answered. “Afraid I wouldn’t live?” “No,” she said, “afraid you would.”
Insofar as Clemens could be said to have inherited his sense of humour, it would have come from his mother, not his father. John Clemens, by all reports, was a serious man who seldom demonstrated affection. No doubt his temperament was affected by his worries over his financial situation, made all the more distressing by a series of business failures. It was the diminishing fortunes of the Clemens family that led them in 1839 to move 30 miles (50 km) east from Florida , Missouri , to the Mississippi River port town of Hannibal , where there were greater opportunities. John Clemens opened a store and eventually became a justice of the peace , which entitled him to be called “Judge” but not to a great deal more. In the meantime, the debts accumulated. Still, John Clemens believed the Tennessee land he had purchased in the late 1820s (some 70,000 acres [28,000 hectares]) might one day make them wealthy, and this prospect cultivated in the children a dreamy hope. Late in his life, Twain reflected on this promise that became a curse:
It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us—dreamers and indolent.…It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich—these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.
Judging from his own speculative ventures in silver mining , business, and publishing, it was a curse that Sam Clemens never quite outgrew.
Perhaps it was the romantic visionary in him that caused Clemens to recall his youth in Hannibal with such fondness. As he remembered it in “ Old Times on the Mississippi” (1875), the village was a “white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning,” until the arrival of a riverboat suddenly made it a hive of activity. The gamblers, stevedores, and pilots, the boisterous raftsmen and elegant travelers, all bound for somewhere surely glamorous and exciting, would have impressed a young boy and stimulated his already active imagination. And the lives he might imagine for these living people could easily be embroidered by the romantic exploits he read in the works of James Fenimore Cooper , Sir Walter Scott , and others. Those same adventures could be reenacted with his companions as well, and Clemens and his friends did play at being pirates, Robin Hood , and other fabled adventurers. Among those companions was Tom Blankenship, an affable but impoverished boy whom Twain later identified as the model for the character Huckleberry Finn . There were local diversions as well—fishing, picnicking, and swimming. A boy might swim or canoe to and explore Glasscock’s Island, in the middle of the Mississippi River, or he might visit the labyrinthine McDowell’s Cave, about 2 miles (3 km) south of town. The first site evidently became Jackson’s Island in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ; the second became McDougal’s Cave in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . In the summers, Clemens visited his uncle John Quarles’s farm, near Florida, Missouri, where he played with his cousins and listened to stories told by the slave Uncle Daniel, who served, in part, as a model for Jim in Huckleberry Finn .
It is not surprising that the pleasant events of youth, filtered through the softening lens of memory, might outweigh disturbing realities. However, in many ways the childhood of Samuel Clemens was a rough one. Death from disease during this time was common. His sister Margaret died of a fever when Clemens was not yet four years old; three years later his brother Benjamin died. When he was eight, a measles epidemic (potentially lethal in those days) was so frightening to him that he deliberately exposed himself to infection by climbing into bed with his friend Will Bowen in order to relieve the anxiety. A cholera epidemic a few years later killed at least 24 people, a substantial number for a small town. In 1847 Clemens’s father died of pneumonia. John Clemens’s death contributed further to the family’s financial instability. Even before that year, however, continuing debts had forced them to auction off property, to sell their only slave, Jennie, to take in boarders, even to sell their furniture.
Apart from family worries, the social environment was hardly idyllic . Missouri was a slave state, and, though the young Clemens had been reassured that chattel slavery was an institution approved by God, he nevertheless carried with him memories of cruelty and sadness that he would reflect upon in his maturity. Then there was the violence of Hannibal itself. One evening in 1844 Clemens discovered a corpse in his father’s office; it was the body of a California emigrant who had been stabbed in a quarrel and was placed there for the inquest. In January 1845 Clemens watched a man die in the street after he had been shot by a local merchant; this incident provided the basis for the Boggs shooting in Huckleberry Finn . Two years later he witnessed the drowning of one of his friends, and only a few days later, when he and some friends were fishing on Sny Island, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, they discovered the drowned and mutilated body of a fugitive slave . As it turned out, Tom Blankenship’s older brother Bence had been secretly taking food to the runaway slave for some weeks before the slave was apparently discovered and killed. Bence’s act of courage and kindness served in some measure as a model for Huck’s decision to help the fugitive Jim in Huckleberry Finn .
After the death of his father, Sam Clemens worked at several odd jobs in town, and in 1848 he became a printer’s apprentice for Joseph P. Ament’s Missouri Courier . He lived sparingly in the Ament household but was allowed to continue his schooling and, from time to time, indulge in boyish amusements. Nevertheless, by the time Clemens was 13, his boyhood had effectively come to an end.
Mark Twain, author of classic books such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Gilded Age (plus a wide variety of short stories and other literature), had a quick wit and prolific body of work that has made him one of America's most quoted—and misquoted—writers. Find out more about his life and legacy, as well as some quotes about love, loss, and comedy.
After trying out other aliases like “Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass” and “Sergeant Fathom,” Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted “ Mark Twain ” in 1863. He claimed the idea came from his stint as a Mississippi River steamboat captain before the Civil War—sailors used to call out “mark twain!” to identify when the water was two fathoms (or 12 feet) deep.
Mark Twain was known to have spent his boyhood exploring the three miles of passageways in a cave in Hannibal, Missouri, that would later become the inspiration for a scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . For more than a century, visitors have examined the walls for some sign of the author’s time there—and, during a tour in July 2019, one hawk-eyed spelunker finally spotted the word Clemens among the other names that line the walls.
When the Department of Agriculture bought more than 3 million acres of land in Missouri and Arkansas in 1934 and 1935, various forestry professionals chimed in with their opinions about which Missourian deserved to be the namesake for the expansive soon-to-be national forest. Other contenders included World War I general John J. Pershing, poet Eugene Field, and pioneer Daniel Boone (who was actually born in Pennsylvania, though he died in Missouri).
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A little over 30 miles from Hannibal, Missouri, the 18,600-acre Mark Twain Lake is Missouri’s seventh largest . The area not only boasts beaches, hiking trails, camping grounds, and other outdoor activities, it’s also home to the Mark Twain State Park, where you can visit the tiny two-room cabin where Clemens was born in 1835.
Mark Twain and his wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, had three daughters and a son, Langdon, who died at just 19 months. The couple's daughters were:
The family lived in their Hartford, Connecticut, mansion for 17 years, between 1874 and 1891. It was during that time that Clemens wrote his most famous books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , Life on the Mississippi , The Prince and the Pauper , A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court , and, of course, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
He also patented several inventions during his career, including: A convoluted trivia board game called Memory Builder , which required an extensive knowledge of figures, dates, and events across European and American history; a self-adhesive scrapbook that worked much like an envelope; and an adjustable, detachable garment clasp that was primarily intended for suspenders, but ended up being used mostly for bras.
As twain’s books provide insight into the past‚ the events of his personal life further demonstrate his role as an eyewitness to history..
During his lifetime‚ Sam Clemens watched a young United States evolve from a nation torn apart by internal conflicts to one of international power. He experienced America’s vast growth and change – from westward expansion to industrialization‚ the end of slavery‚ advancements in technology‚ big government and foreign wars. And along the way‚ he often had something to say about the changes happening in his country.
Samuel Clemens was born on November 30‚ 1835 in Florida‚ Missouri‚ the sixth of seven children. At age 4‚ Sam and his family moved to the small frontier town of Hannibal‚ Missouri‚ on the banks of the Mississippi River. Missouri‚ at the time‚ was a fairly new state (it had gained statehood in 1821) and made up part of the country’s western border. It was also a state that took part in slavery. Sam’s father owned one enslaved person, and his uncle owned several. In fact‚ it was on his uncle’s farm that Sam spent many boyhood summers playing in the enslaved people’s quarters‚ listening to tall tales and the spirituals that he would enjoy throughout his life.
In 1847‚ when Sam was 11‚ his father died. Shortly thereafter he left school to work as a printer’s apprentice for a local newspaper. His job was to arrange the type for each of the newspaper’s stories‚ allowing Sam to read the news of the world while completing his work.
At 18‚ Sam headed east to New York City and Philadelphia‚ where he worked on several different newspapers and found some success at writing articles. By 1857‚ he had returned home to embark on a new career as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861‚ however‚ all traffic along the river came to a halt‚ as did Sam’s pilot career. Inspired by the times‚ Sam joined up with a volunteer Confederate unit called the Marion Rangers‚ but he quit after just two weeks.
In search of a new career‚ Sam headed west in July 1861‚ at the invitation of his brother‚ Orion‚ who had just been appointed secretary of the Nevada Territory. Lured by the infectious hope of striking it rich in Nevada’s silver rush‚ Sam traveled across the open frontier from Missouri to Nevada by stagecoach. Along the journey Sam encountered Native American tribes for the first time, along with a variety of unique characters‚ mishaps, and disappointments. These events would find a way into his short stories and books‚ particularly Roughing It .
After failing as a silver prospector‚ Sam began writing for the Territorial Enterprise‚ a Virginia City‚ Nevada newspaper where he used‚ for the first time‚ his pen name‚ Mark Twain. Seeking change, by 1864 Sam headed for San Francisco where he continued to write for local papers.
In 1865 Sam’s first “big break” came with the publication of his short story “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog ” in papers across the country. A year later Sam was hired by the Sacramento Union to visit and report on the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). His writings were so popular that‚ upon his return‚ he embarked upon his first lecture tour‚ which established him as a successful stage performer.
Hired by the Alta California to continue his travel writing from the east‚ Sam arrived in New York City in 1867. He quickly signed up for a steamship tour of Europe and the “Holy Land.” His travel letters‚ full of vivid descriptions and tongue-in-cheek observations‚ met with such audience approval that they were later reworked into his first book‚ The Innocents Abroad , published in 1869. It was also on this trip that Clemens met his future brother-in-law‚ Charles Langdon. Langdon reportedly showed Sam a picture of his sister‚ Olivia ‚ and Sam fell in love at first sight.
After courting for two years‚ Sam Clemens and Olivia (Livy) Langdon were married in 1870. They settled in Buffalo‚ New York‚ where Sam had become a partner‚ editor, and writer for the daily newspaper the Buffalo Express . While they were living in Buffalo‚ their first child‚ Langdon Clemens‚ was born.
In 1871 Sam moved his family to Hartford‚ Connecticut‚ a city he had come to love while visiting his publisher there and where he had made friends. Livy also had family connections to the city. For the first few years the Clemenses rented a house in the heart of Nook Farm‚ a residential area that was home to numerous writers‚ publishers, and other prominent figures. In 1872 Sam’s recollections and tall tales from his frontier adventures were published in his book Roughing It . That same year the Clemenses’ first daughter Susy was born‚ but their son‚ Langdon‚ died at age two from diphtheria.
In 1873 Sam’s focus turned toward social criticism. He and Hartford Courant publisher Charles Dudley Warner co-wrote The Gilded Age ‚ a novel that attacked political corruption‚ big business, and the American obsession with getting rich that seemed to dominate the era. Ironically‚ a year after its publication‚ the Clemenses’ elaborate 25-room house on Farmington Avenue‚ which had cost the then-huge sum of $40‚000-$45‚000‚ was completed.
For the next 17 years (1874-1891)‚ Sam‚ Livy, and their three daughters (Clara was born in 1874 and Jean in 1880) lived in the Hartford home. During those years Sam completed some of his most famous books‚ often finding a summer refuge for uninterrupted work at his sister-in-law’s farm in Elmira‚ New York. Novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Life on the Mississippi (1883) captured both his Missouri memories and depictions of the American scene. Yet his social commentary continued. The Prince and the Pauper (1881) explored class relations, as does A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), which‚ going a step further‚ criticized oppression in general while examining the period’s explosion of new technologies. And‚ in perhaps his most famous work‚ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)‚ Clemens‚ by the way he attacked the institution of slavery‚ railed against the failures of Reconstruction and the continued poor treatment of African Americans in his own time.
Huckleberry Finn was also the first book published by Sam’s own publishing company‚ The Charles L. Webster Company. In an attempt to gain control over publication as well as to make substantial profits‚ Sam created the company in 1884. A year later he contracted with Ulysses S. Grant to publish Grant’s memoirs; the two-volume set provided large royalties for Grant’s widow and was a financial success for the publisher as well.
Although Sam enjoyed financial success during his Hartford years‚ he continually made bad investments in new inventions‚ which eventually brought him to bankruptcy. In an effort to economize and pay back his debts‚ Sam and Livy moved their family to Europe in 1891. When his publishing company failed in 1894‚ Sam was forced to set out on a worldwide lecture tour to earn money. In 1896 tragedy struck when Susy Clemens‚ at age 24‚ died from meningitis while on a visit to the Hartford home. Unable to bear being in the place of her death‚ the Clemenses never returned to Hartford to live.
From 1891 until 1900‚ Sam and his family traveled throughout the world. During those years Sam witnessed the increasing exploitation of weaker governments by European powers‚ which he described in his book Following the Equator (1897). The Boer War in South Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China fueled his growing anger toward imperialistic countries and their actions. With the Spanish-American and Philippine wars in 1898‚ Sam’s wrath was redirected toward the American government. When he returned to the United States in 1900‚ his finances restored‚ Sam readily declared himself an anti-imperialist and‚ from 1901 until his death‚ served as the vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League.
In these later years‚ Sam’s writings turned dark. They began to focus on human greed and cruelty and questioned the humanity of the human race. His public speeches followed suit and included a harshly sarcastic public introduction of Winston Churchill in 1900. Even though Sam’s lecture tour had managed to get him out of debt‚ his anti-government writings and speeches threatened his livelihood once again. As Sam was labeled by some as a traitor‚ several of his works were never published during his lifetime, either because magazines would not accept them or because of his own personal fear that his marketable reputation would be ruined.
In 1903‚ after living in New York City for three years‚ Livy became ill, and Sam and his wife returned to Italy, where she died a year later. After her death‚ Sam lived in New York until 1908, when he moved into his last house‚ “Stormfield,” in Redding‚ Connecticut. In 1909 his middle daughter Clara was married. In the same year Jean‚ the youngest daughter‚ died from an epileptic seizure. Four months later, on April 21‚ 1910‚ Sam Clemens died at age 74.
Like any good journalist‚ Sam Clemens‚ a.k.a. Mark Twain‚ spent his life observing and reporting on his surroundings. In his writings he provided images of the romantic‚ the real‚ the strengths and weaknesses of a rapidly changing world. By examining his life and his works‚ we can read into the past – piecing together various events of the era and the responses to them. We can delve into the American mindset of the late nineteenth century and make our own observations of history‚ discover new connections‚ create new inferences and gain better insights into the time period and the people who lived in it. As Sam once wrote‚ “Supposing is good‚ but finding out is better.”
Born: November 30, 1835 Florida, Missouri Died: April 21, 1910 Redding, Connecticut American writer and humorist
Mark Twain, American humorist (comic writer) and novelist, captured a world audience with stories of boyhood adventure and with commentary on man's faults that is humorous even while it probes, often bitterly, the roots of human behavior.
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in the frontier village of Florida, Missouri. He spent his boyhood in nearby Hannibal, on the banks of the Mississippi River, observing its busy life, fascinated by its romance, but chilled by the violence and bloodshed it bred. Clemens was eleven years old when his lawyer father died. In order to help the family earn money, the young Clemens began working as a store clerk and a delivery boy. He also began working as an apprentice (working to learn a trade), then a compositor (a person who sets type), with local printers, contributing occasional small pieces to local newspapers. At seventeen his comic sketch "The Dandy Frightening the Squatter" was published by a sportsmen's magazine in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1853 Clemens began wandering as a journeyman printer to St. Louis, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; settling briefly with his brother, Orion, in Iowa before setting out at twenty-two years old to make his fortune, he hoped, beside the lush banks of the Amazon River in South America. Instead, traveling down the Mississippi River, he became a steamboat river pilot until the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–65), when Northern forces clashed with those of the South over slavery and secession (the South's desire to leave the Union).
In 1861 Clemens traveled to Nevada, where he invested carelessly in timber and silver mining. He settled down to newspaper work in Virginia City, until his reckless pen and redheaded temper brought him into conflict with local authorities; it seemed profitable to escape to California. Meanwhile he had adopted the pen name of Mark Twain, a riverman's term for water that is just safe enough for navigation.
In 1865, Twain began to write a short story, The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which first brought him national attention. Most of his western writing was hastily, often carelessly, done and he later did little to preserve it.
In 1865 the Sacramento Union commissioned Mark Twain to report on a new excursion service to Hawaii. His accounts as published in the newspaper provided the basis for his first successful lectures and years later were collected in Letters from the Sandwich Islands (1938) and Letters from Honolulu (1939). His travel accounts were so well received that he was contracted in 1866 to become a traveling correspondent for the Alta California; he would circle the globe, writing letters.
In 1870 Twain married Olivia Langdon. After a brief residence in upstate New York as an editor and part owner of the Buffalo Express, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he lived for twenty years; there three daughters were born, and prosperity as a writer and lecturer (in England in 1872 and 1873) seemed guaranteed. Roughing It (1872) recounted Mark Twain's travels to Nevada and reprinted some of the Sandwich Island letters.
Twain's Tom Sawyer, better organized than Huckleberry Finn, is a narrative of innocent boyhood play that accidentally discovers evil as Tom and Huck witness a murder by Injun Joe in a graveyard at midnight. The boys run away, are thought dead, but turn up at their own funeral. Tom and Huck decide to seek out the murderer and the reward offered for his capture. It is Tom and his sweetheart who, while lost in a cave, discover the hiding place of Injun Joe. Though the townspeople unwittingly seal the murderer in the cave, they close the entrance only to keep adventuresome boys like Tom out of future trouble. In the end, it is innocent play and boyish adventuring which really triumph.
Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be Mark Twain's finest creation. Huck lacks Tom's imagination; he is a simple boy with little education. One measure of his character is a proneness to deceit, which seems instinctive, a trait shared by other wild things and relating him to nature—in opposition to Tom's tradition-grounded, book-learned, imaginative deceptions. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a loosely strung series of adventures, can be viewed as the story of a quest for freedom and an escape from what society requires in exchange for success. Joined in flight by a black companion, Jim, who seeks freedom from slavery, Huck discovers that the Mississippi is peaceful (though he is found to be only partially correct) but that the world along its shores is full of trickery, including his own, and by cruelty and murder. When the raft on which he and Jim are floating down the river is invaded by two criminals, Huck first becomes their assistant in swindles but is finally the agent of their exposure.
Whatever its faults, Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a classic. Variously interpreted, it is often thought to suggest more than it reveals, speaking of what man has done to confuse himself about his right relation to nature. It can also be thought of as a treatment of man's failures in dealing with his fellows and of the corruption that man's only escape is in flight, perhaps even from himself. Yet it is also an apparently artless story of adventure and escape so simply and directly told that novelist Ernest Hemingway (c.1899–1961) once said that all American literature begins with this book.
After a series of unsuccessful business ventures in Europe, Twain returned to the United States in 1900. His writings grew increasingly bitter, especially after his wife's death in 1905. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) exposed corruption in a small, typical American town. Eve's Diary (1906), written partly in memory of his wife, showed a man saved from bungling only through the influence of a good woman.
In 1906 Twain began to dictate his autobiography to Albert B. Paine, recording scattered memories without any particular order. Portions from it were published in periodicals later that year. With the income from the excerpts of his autobiography, he built a large house in Redding, Connecticut, which he named Stormfield. There, after several trips to Bermuda to improve his declining health, he died on April 21, 1910.
Kaplan, Justin. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966.
Krauth, Leland. Proper Mark Twain. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999.
Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain, A Biography: The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. New York: Harper & Bros., 1912. Reprint, Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997.
Twain, Mark. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. New York: Harper, 1959. Reprint, New York: Perennial Classics, 2000.
Ward, Geoffrey C., and Dayton Duncan. Mark Twain. New York: Knopf, 2001.
Wecter, Dixon. Sam Clemens of Hannibal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1979.
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World History Edu
by World History Edu · October 6, 2021
Mark Twain – biography and achievements
This American humorist, novelist and lecturer produced some of the most important works in the history of modern literature. With more than twenty novels to his name, many of them well-received as well, Mark Twain thus became an influential public figure and one of the greatest American writers of all time. This notion is supported by American writer and 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature winner William Cuthbert Faulkner (1897-1962), who described Twain as “the Father of American literature”.
World History Edu takes a quick look at the early life, education, career, achievements, and major facts about Mark Twain.
Real name : Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Date of birth : November 30, 1835
Birthplace : Florida, Missouri, U.S.
Died : April 21, 1910
Place of death : Redding, Connecticut
Buried : Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, New York, United States
Parents : John Marshall Clemens and Jane Clemens
Siblings : Six, including Orion Clemens and Henry Clemens
Wife : Olivia Langdon (married in 1870; died in 1904)
Children : Langdon, Susy, Clara and Jean
Notable Works: The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today , The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , The Prince and the Pauper , Tom Sawyer Abroad
Awards : Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1920)
Occupation : Humorist, novelist, public moralist, political philosopher, travel writer, publisher, and lecturer
The Florida, Missouri-born humorist and novelist is most famous for works such as the The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Prince and the Pauper (1881).
Twain is also famous for penning the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), a book which is sometimes called “The Great American Novel”. The book is a sequel to his other famous book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
With works such as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865), Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was also known for his mastery of spoken language, wit and satire.
His schooling ended when he was in the fifth grade because he took up an apprenticeship training at a printer’s shop. He also trained as a typesetter at his older brother Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal.
The lack of an advance formal education did nothing to inhibit his literary prowess as he educated himself in public libraries in Missouri.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , age 15, better known by his pen name Mark Twain
Mark Twain was of English, Cornish and Scottish descent. He had six siblings; however only three made it past childhood. The three were Orion (1824-1897), Henry (1838-1858), and Pamela (1827-1904).
He was born in Florida, Missouri, but he spent much of his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, a port town that inspired the fictional place St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and later the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain drew a lot of his material from his childhood experiences in Hannibal, Missouri. His inclination to infuse slavery into books like the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn stemmed from the fact that slavery was legal in Missouri during his childhood.
Mark Twain is famously known for his published works The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today , The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , and The Prince and the Pauper . He was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, United States.
Mark Twain’s Old Times on the Mississippi (1875) affectionately recounts his childhood memories in Hannibal.
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain grew up with six siblings in Florida, Missouri. When he was around four years old, his family’s financial woes forced them to immigrate to Hannibal , a lively port town along the Mississippi River in the state of Missouri.
Twain, who was born two months prematurely, struggled for the first decade or so in his life. Many home therapies were used by his mother to give the young Twain some semblance of a normal life. His sickly nature meant that he was treated with somewhat of a kid’s glove. He is said to have had a knack for being mischievous child.
His mother Jane Clemens had the greatest impact on him as a child. He most likely got his sense of humor from his mother, not his father John Marshall Clemens (1798-1847). His father was quite a stern and serious parent, often times not displaying any kind of affection to the young Clemens or his siblings.
After moving to Hannibal, John Clemens set up a store; he would later go on to become a justice of the peace (i.e. a local magistrate). Hannibal was not very kind to the Clemens as their financial woes continued. His family penned a great deal of hope on a 70,000-acre land in Tennessee, hoping it would be their ticket to stable lifestyle. As Twain would later write, the land ended up being a bad investment like many other speculative ventures of his father’s.
As a child, Twain’s active imagination was evident right from the get go. He and his friends would act out stories from many fabled adventures, including Robin Hood. Often times, he would visit the labyrinthine McDowell’s Cave and go swimming in the river near Glasscock’s Island. In his book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , the island becomes Jackson’s Island.
During the summer holidays, Twain would spend time at his uncle John Quarles’ farm in Florida, Missouri, where he have a great deal of fun with his cousins. As kids, they would listen to the captivating stories told by a slave called Uncle Daniel, a man who Twain transformed into the character Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
His childhood experiences with friend Tom Blankenship was the inspiration for his book character Huckleberry Finn.
It was not all fun and sunshine during his childhood. Twain had his fair share of personal losses. One of his siblings, Margaret, succumbed to a disease when Twain was still toddler. His brother Benjamin died when Twain was around seven years old. Then, at the age of eight, he acquired measles during the epidemic. His childhood was also marred by the cholera epidemic that claimed the lives of over 20 people in the town. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of his childhood came in 1847, when his father, John Clemens, passed away due to pneumonia.
The death of his father further exacerbated the family’s financial problems. The family was forced to sell a great deal of their possessions, including the only slave, Jennie, they owned. Yes! Mark Twain’s family, who lived in the slave state of Missouri, owned a slave. It was the mid-1850s; slavery hadn’t been abolished at time. As a kid, Twain was told by his elders that slaves were chattel that God sanctioned for people to own. In his adult years, Twain struggled to with the guilt and shame of his family’s possession of a slave.
The port town of Hannibal, Missouri, also had its fair share of violent activities that left a scar on the mind of the young Clemens. He once saw a man gunned down a Hannibal merchant. He was also shocked by level of abuse slaves in Missouri endured at the hands of their owners. One time, he and his friends, while playing in the river, found a dead slave body floating in the river.
Growing up, Samuel Clemens was influenced by writers such as Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and American author and novelist James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). The latter author was most famous for writing novels of frontier adventure, including The Pioneers (1823) and The Pathfinder (1840).
During his writing career, Mark Twain, being an excellent raconteur, penned down the fond stories he had as a child in Hannibal, Missouri. Such stories appeared in his 1875 book “Old times on the Mississippi”. Twain also credits the port town’s buzzing and colorful nature for shaping his imagination.
The labyrinthine McDowell’s Cave in Hannibal was featured in Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as McDougal’s Cave.
Before taking up writing as a full time job, Mark Twain worked in a variety of jobs. In the years after his father’s death, he began working to supplement his family’s meager income. In 1848, he was employed as a printer’s apprentice for the Missouri Courier. Then in 1851, he was employed as typesetter in his brother Orion’s Hannibal newspaper, the Journal. It was probably around this time that Twain began to hone his talents in writing. He would sometimes write sketches and articles for the journal. His sketch titled “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter” (1852) received quite a number of followers as it was carried in many local newspapers.
Mark Twain’s older brother Orion purchased the Hannibal Journal in 1850. Twain got employed in the newspaper as a typesetter. He also worked as an editor when his brother was not available.
Towards his late teens, he resigned from his brother’s journal and pursued his own endeavors, including being a typesetter in St. Louis in 1853. He worked for a number of printing businesses in the east, including in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City. He worked as a laborer for many years, until he was almost 40, when according to him got up one day and entered into the writing profession proper.
Twain spent a great number of years travelling through many states in the East. His journeys enriched his literary mind, allowing him to gain a very wide perspective of the world that he lived in.
In 1857, he became an apprentice for a riverboat captain called Horace Bixby. He is said to have paid $500 in apprentice fee. He studied the Mississippi River and desired nothing than to acquire a pilot license.
Working with other veteran pilots, Samuel Clemens quickly learned the trade. He took quite a lot of pride in being a steamboat pilot. Back the steamboat pilot was very well respected, even more than the captain. Steamboat pilots earned good wages in addition to the respect they received from the society.
Twain saw the job as one that gave him a great deal of freedom and self-sufficiency, believing that the job also instilled in him discipline, a sense of purpose and direction. He was a member of the Western Boatman’s Benevolent Association. By 1859, he had received his pilot’s license.
Mark Twain’s wife – Olivia Langdon in 1869
While traveling through Europe in the late 1860s, he met Charles Langdon, who later introduced Twain to his sister Olivia Langdon. Mark Twain noted that he fell head over heels for Olivia, who was the daughter of a businessman from Elmira, New York. The two tied the knot in February 1870.
With some bit of help from his wife’s father, the couple were able to buy one-third interest in the Express of Buffalo, New York.
Mark Twain’s daughters (L-R): Susy, Clara, and Jean
After making their home in Buffalo, New York, Mark Twain and Olivia Langdon had four children, one son and three daughters: Langdon, Susy (1872-1896), Clara (1874-1962), and Jean (1880-1909). Langdon died (of diphtheria) in 1872, before turning two.
Twain’s marriage to Olivia Langdon spanned for 34 years until she died in 1904.
Mark Twain’s losses weren’t only financial. The acclaimed writer suffered a series of personal losses in the last decade of the 19 th century and the early 20 th century.
His daughter Susy died of spinal meningitis in 1896. His daughter’s death was a huge blow to him and his wife, who was plagued by an awful sickness by then. Twain committed himself to his work in an attempt to mitigate the pain. That same year, his other daughter Jean was diagnosed with epilepsy. The family visited many European countries looking for a remedy.
On June 5, 1904, his wife died, sending him into an even deeper depression. His book Eve’s Diary (1906) – which talks about the love between Adam and Eve – was in honor of his deceased wife.
On December 24, 1909, his daughter Jean succumbed to complications from her epilepsy. Twain wrote the book “The Death of Jean” (1911) to honor her. About six months prior to Jean’s death, his very close friend Henry Rogers died.
All of those personal tragedies made him sad and lonely in his final few years.
He worked on the steamboat until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. For a brief period, he served in the Confederate Army, however, he later deserted, stating that he was not made to be a soldier.
“The Private History of a Campaign That Failed” – a sketch in 1885 – a fictional memoir – his time in the Confederate Missouri State Guard in Marion County, Missouri – group of inexperienced militiamen called the Marion Rangers
Mark Twain and his brother Orion fled from Hannibal to the Nevada Territory. His brother was a Republican and supported Abraham Lincoln ’s presidential bid. For that, Orion Clemens was appointed territorial secretary of Nevada.
While in Nevada Territory, he took trading in silver, timber and gold in the mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. Success was a hard to come by as a miner. With the help of a newspaper editor Joseph Goodman, he became a reporter at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Many of the stories he covered the city’s endemic corruption and moral decadence. He performed his job diligently, even at the risk to his life.
It was around this time that he started going by the pen name “Mark Twain”. He also grew into his literary profession. Some of his articles appeared outside the territory, in places like New York.
In a brash act of immaturity, he challenged the editor of a San Francisco newspaper to a duel. After realizing how reckless his action was, he fled the city out of fear. In the mid-1860s, Twain headed to San Francisco to work as a full-time reporter for the Call. He also worked with the Golden Era.
One of Mark Twain’s most famous short stories, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865), was inspired by his experiences after he had fled San Francisco to Tuolumne foothills in the U.S. state of California. The story was a huge success, bringing the humorist critical acclaim.
In 1866, he took up a job with the Sacramento Union as a reporter. He work in Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) would later serve as important material for his first lecture tour.
In 1867, he worked as a traveling correspondent for the San Francisco Alta California. The newspaper paid for his trip to Europe and the Holy Land on the condition that he writes travel stories for the newspaper. Those letters are what turned into the travel book The Innocents Abroad (1869) (also known as The New Pilgrims’ Progress ), which proved to be a huge success.
Mark Twain, born Samuel L. Clemens, attained worldwide acclaim with his very popular books. He was also famed for his lecture tour, which fetched considerable amount of money, especially in his later years.
The writer and novelist Mark Twain was said to have been a big fan of technology and science. Out of this curiosity, he formed a strong friendship with inventor and futurist Nikola Tesla . Twain even got to patent a number of inventions that had made, including a detachable straps for garments.
Twain’s association with Nikola Tesla rubbed off a bit in the novelist’s works. For example, in his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court , Twain writes about a fictional American time traveler who finds himself in the age of King Arthur and tries to help the people with modern technology.
Twain was also an acquaintance of Thomas Edison, one of Tesla’s arch rivals in the scientific world. In 1909, Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, visited Twain at his home in Connecticut and took a motion picture of him.
Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, in the laboratory of Nikola Tesla, early 1894
In 1884, Twain established his own publishing company. He partnered with nephew and businessman Charles L. Webster. The publishing company, which was known as Charles L. Webster and Company, experienced severe financial problems and then went bust in 1894. In spite of his determined efforts to keep the company afloat using his own personal money, the publishing house still folded up.
The publishing house still made history with its first two publications: Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and former US president Ulysses S. Grant ’s memoir – the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885). Both books received a lot of critical acclaim. Twain’s publication of U.S. Grant’s memoir helped lift the former U.S. general and POTUS out of a financial misery. After the death of Grant, Twain presented a whopping $450,000 to Julia Grant, the wife of Grant.
Read More: 10 Military Achievements of U.S. Grant
An avid admirer of science and technology, Mark Twain invested heavily in the Paige Compositor, an invention by James W. Paige (1842-1917). For someone who was once a typesetter, Twain bought into the invention that was made to make human typesetter obsolete.
Unfortunately, technical problems in the design caused the machine to be a huge flop on the market. Mark Twain invested about a quarter of a million USD into the machine that never turned a profit. The horrible venture marked the beginning of the writer’s financial woes. By 1891, Twain had given up on the project. The financial crisis of 1893 further compounded his mounting debt problem, causing him to file for personal bankruptcy.
With the help of Wall Street business executive and financier Henry Huttleston Rogers, Twain was able to turn things around. His world lecture tour and book sales helped him to pay all his debts.
Note: In today’s dollar, the amount ($300,000) Mark Twain spent on the Paige Compositor is the equivalent of about $ 9.5 million.
American humorist and novelist Mark Twain authored more than 20 novels | Image: Twain, age 31
Mark Twain is undoubtedly the greatest humorist in modern American literature. He once described humor as his “strongest suit”. The author believed that humor is a call to literature of a low order. The following are the most famous works by Mark Twain:
In 1895, Mark Twain went on a world lecture tour in an attempt to raise money to pay his creditors. The writer visited places in Canada, New Zealand, India, South Africa and Australia, among others.
He was able to author a book primarily using the experiences of his tour in India. The book was titled Following the Equator (1897).
Mark Twain was born shortly after the passing of Halley’s Comet. Interestingly, he died a day after the comet passed by the Earth again. The humorist had stated that he was bound to “go out with it”.
On April 21, 1910, Mark Twain died in his Stormfield home in Redding, Connecticut. The humorist and novelist was aged 74, and was survived by his daughter Clara.
Then-U.S. president William Howard Taft sent his heartfelt condolences to Twain’s surviving relatives. The president paid homage to his contribution American literature, heaping praise on his works for giving enormous pleasure to millions of people across the world.
The last work he was working on – “Etiquette for the Afterlife: Advice to Paine” – was posthumously published in 1995. It is a short humorous sketch.
Mark Twain was buried at a family plot in Elmira, New York, alongside his wife, his son, and two daughters. He left an estate valued at almost half a million USD (about $13 million in today’s dollars). | Image: Twain and his wife are buried side by side in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery
Origin of Mark Twain’s pen name | Other pen names of Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) included Quintius Curtius Snodgrass, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass and Josh, among others. In the end, he picked Mark Twain as his pseudonym.
Unbeknownst to many people Mark Twain is actually the pen name of Samuel Clemens. But why did Samuel Clemens choose the pen name Mark Twain?
Before settling on “Mark Twain”, the writer used a number of different pseudonyms, including “Josh” and “Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass”. The first time he used a pen name was in the early 1850s when he signed a sketch in his brother’s newspaper “W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins”.
The name “Mark Twain” emerged during his years working as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi. Mark twain is the nautical term for water found to be two fathoms – i.e. 12 feet (3.7 meters) deep. Thus mark means “measure”, while twain means “ two”.
Mark Twain also acknowledged that his famous pen name was used by Captain Isaiah Sellers before he adopted in his literary profession.
Mark Twain quotes
The following are 5 major quotes by Mark Twain, the writer who is commonly regarded as the greatest humorist in the history of the United States.
The following are six more facts about Mark Twain:
Image: Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for his D.Litt. degree, awarded to him by Oxford University in 1907
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Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate on Tuesday, Reuters reported, propelling the plain-spoken Midwestern progressive into the national spotlight while adding a key ally to her campaign for the presidency.
Walz, 60, brings political mastery, suburban-and-rural appeal and patriotism to a competition seen as helpful for Democrats to clinch a 2024 win against the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.
Gwen Walz was born in Glencoe, Minnesota, and grew up in the western part of the state, according to the official governor’s website.
Alongside her three sisters, Gwen was raised by her parents, Val and Linn, who were educators and small business owners. She has received degrees from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and Minnesota State University in Mankato. Gwen began her English teaching career in western Nebraska, where she met Tim Walz and married in 1994.
The Walz’s have two children together: Hope and Gus. In March, Walz shared his family’s struggle to conceive and the IVF journey that brought them their daughter.
Walz is the son of Darlene Rose and James F. Walz. His father was a public school administrator, and his mother was a community activist. He said his parents taught him the values of hard work and community service.
Sam Woodward contributed to the reporting of this story.
Picture by Getty Images
Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan has already set his next target after winning the gold medal in the javelin throw event at Paris 2024 by smashing the Olympic record .
The 27-year-old Arshad Nadeem became the first individual Olympic champion from Pakistan after registering a monster throw of 92.97m on his second attempt in the final at the Stade de France.
Arshad broke the previous Olympic javelin throw record of 90.57m set by Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway at Beijing 2008. The mark also set a new Asian javelin throw record.
He also produced another throw, his last of the evening, of 91.79m to outline his domination of the javelin field on Thursday.
Only content with breaking the Olympic record, Arshad has set his sights on achieving the 95m mark next.
“I was expecting and hoping to even go further but ultimately, I am content with 92.97m as it allowed me to win the gold,” he said after winning the gold medal in the final. “But I will continue working harder to extend this throw to over 95m.
“I credit my gold medal to my coach for helping me to be in top form at the Olympics.”
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Arshad Nadeem finished fifth in the men’s javelin throw event with a best attempt of 84.62m. In comparison, he had three throws over the 88m mark in Paris, including two over 90m.
Neeraj Chopra of India, who finished second in Paris, won the gold medal at Tokyo 2020 with an 87.58m throw.
“I was fit enough to do well in Tokyo, but I could not perform well at the time,” Arshad said. “After the Olympics, I worked hard and won the gold at the Commonwealth Games. After that, I even tried harder to maintain my rhythm. And today, I won the gold for the country.”
Arshad Nadeem’s throw in Paris was a mammoth 3.52m better than defending champion Neeraj Chopra’s 89.45m, the Indian’s second-best career throw
The Indo-Pakistan rivalry is starting to shape in the javelin throw event. Neeraj and Arshad had also secured a 1-2 finish at the World Championships with the Indian pipping the Pakistani to the gold medal back then.
In the absence of Neeraj, Arshad also won the Commonwealth Games gold medal with a 90.18m throw on his fifth attempt. He became the first from South Asia to cross the 90m mark in this event. The two athletes also shared the podium at the Asian Games 2018 with Neeraj winning gold while Arshad settled for bronze.
“The rivalry was there, no doubt about that. People in each country were eager to see us both throw the javelin and beat each other. I am very happy to see Neeraj win the silver medal,” said Arshad.
Although Neeraj has a 9-1 head-to-head advantage in the rivalry, Arshad Nadeem has a better personal best, having now crossed the 90m-mark thrice.
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The Italian, Angela Carini, stopped fighting only 46 seconds into her matchup against Imane Khelif of Algeria, who had been barred from a women’s event last year.
By Tariq Panja and Jeré Longman
Reporting from Paris
An Italian boxer abandoned her bout at the Paris Olympics after only 46 seconds on Thursday, refusing to continue after taking a heavy punch from an Algerian opponent who had been disqualified from last year’s world championships over questions about her eligibility to compete in women’s sports.
The Italian boxer, Angela Carini, withdrew after her Algerian opponent, Imane Khelif, landed a powerful blow that struck Carini square in the face. Carini paused for a moment, then turned her back to Khelif and walked to her corner. Her coaches quickly signaled that she would not continue, and the referee stopped the fight.
Khelif, 25, was permitted to compete at the Olympics even though she had been barred last year after boxing officials said she did not meet eligibility requirements to compete in a women’s event. Another athlete also barred from last year’s world championships under similar circumstances, Lin Yu-ting, has also been cleared to fight in Paris.
The International Boxing Association, which ran those championships and ordered the disqualifications, offered little insight into the reasons for the boxers’ removal, saying in a statement that the disqualifications came after “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test .”
The association said that test, the specifics of which it said were confidential, “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
Those rules, which the boxing association adopted for the 2016 Rio Games, are the same ones the International Olympic Committee is operating under as the authority running the boxing tournament at the Paris Games. But the rules, the I.O.C. confirmed, do not include language about testosterone or restrictions on gender eligibility beyond a single line saying “gender tests may be conducted.”
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COMMENTS
Mark Twain, had a tough childhood in rural Missouri and had to leave school at the age of 12 after his father died. His colourful descriptions of a new and ...
In his time, Mark Twain was considered the funniest man on earth. Yet he was also an unflinching critic of human nature, using his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. In this series, Ken ...
Mark Twain, the writer, adventurer and wily social critic born Samuel Clemens, wrote the novels 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.'
Mark Twain. (3m 19s) tv-pg. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, was cemented as a premier writer of late 19th century America with his works "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of ...
Mark Twain Biography. Mark Twain (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910) was an American author, publisher and charismatic humorist. Twain is considered by many to be the 'Father of American Literature' - his best-known novels are ' The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Early life of Mark Twain.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910), [1] known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist.He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," [2] with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." [3] Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of ...
In his time, Mark Twain was considered the funniest man on earth. Yet he was also an unflinching critic of human nature, using his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. In this series, Ken ...
The name Mark Twain is a pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Clemens was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives ...
Updated on September 23, 2018. Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens Nov. 30, 1835 in the small town of Florida, MO, and raised in Hannibal, became one of the greatest American authors of all time. Known for his sharp wit and pithy commentary on society, politics, and the human condition, his many essays and novels, including the American ...
Videos; About; Mark Twain's Biography. by Gregg Camfield, PhD, University of California-Merced. On November 30, 1835, nearly thirty years before he took the pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, a hamlet some 130 miles north-northwest of St. Louis, and 30 miles inland from the Mississippi River. His father ...
A short presentation of Mark Twain's life and works for students of English and American literature.If you appreciate my work, please join my channel and sug...
Biography - Mark Twain: His Amazing Adventures . Mark Twain (Actor) Rated: G. Format: DVD. 4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 9 ratings. $13.90 with 23 percent savings -23% $ 13. 90. List Price: $17.95 List Price: $17.95 $17.95. The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for ...
Mark Twain (born November 30, 1835, Florida, Missouri, U.S.—died April 21, 1910, Redding, Connecticut) was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on the Mississippi (1883), and for his adventure stories of boyhood, especially The Adventures of Tom ...
Mark Twain's Quotes About Love. "Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a ...
Twain Writes his Most Famous Books While Living in Hartford. For the next 17 years (1874-1891)‚ Sam‚ Livy, and their three daughters (Clara was born in 1874 and Jean in 1880) lived in the Hartford home. During those years Sam completed some of his most famous books‚ often finding a summer refuge for uninterrupted work at his sister-in-law ...
Mark Twain Biography. Born: November 30, 1835. Florida, Missouri. Died: April 21, 1910. Redding, Connecticut. American writer and humorist. Mark Twain, American humorist (comic writer) and novelist, captured a world audience with stories of boyhood adventure and with commentary on man's faults that is humorous even while it probes, often ...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, age 15, better known by his pen name Mark Twain. Mark Twain was of English, Cornish and Scottish descent. He had six siblings; however only three made it past childhood. The three were Orion (1824-1897), Henry (1838-1858), and Pamela (1827-1904).
By Michael Dirda. March 18, 2015 at 5:37 p.m. EDT. There are probably more studies and biographies of Mark Twain — the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) — than of any other ...
Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens wrote under the pen name Mark Twain and went on to author several novels, including two ma...
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has chosen Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, elevating a former football coach whose rural roots, liberal policies ...
Alongside her three sisters, Gwen was raised by her parents, Val and Linn, who were educators and small business owners. She has received degrees from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and ...
Limited time! Go to https://NordVPN.com/biographics or use code BIOGRAPHICS to get 70% off a 3 year plan plus 1 additional month free. → Subscribe for new vi...
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Arshad Nadeem finished fifth in the men's javelin throw event with a best attempt of 84.62m. In comparison, he had three throws over the 88m mark in Paris, including two over 90m. Neeraj Chopra of India, who finished second in Paris, won the gold medal at Tokyo 2020 with an 87.58m throw.
The Italian, Angela Carini, stopped fighting only 46 seconds into her matchup against Imane Khelif of Algeria, who had been barred from a women's event last year.
Who is Mark Twain? Mark Twain is a famous author. His real name was Samuel Clemens but used the pen name, Mark Twain. Learn more in this biography for kids a...