Mark Twain



Samuel Langhorne Clemens was best known as the writer Mark Twain. He used humor in his writings to tell stories that were examples of a special American style of literature. The success of his worldwide lecture series and his books, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, made Twain famous.
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Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. In 1839, the family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a town on the banks of the Mississippi River. The river delighted young Clemens. For hours he would watch the steamboats passing and the many different types of people who traveled in the boats on the river. He later used these memories in many of his most popular writings.

After his father died in 1847, Clemens began working for a newspaper in Hannibal to earn extra money for the family. The newspaper printed some of his articles and funny stories about townspeople. Clemens had only attended school for five years. He received most of his education working for newspapers and in print. shops. Clemens had always wanted to travel.

In 1853, he visited cities in the eastern United States, such as New York City and Philadelphia. In 1857, he planned to visit South America, and a newspaper hired him to write letters about the trip. On his way, he met a riverboat captain on the Mississippi River. Clemens decided to cancel his trip and become a riverboat pilot, or a person who steers a boat. Clemens was a skilled pilot.

In 1859, he received a license to operate riverboats. When the Civil War began, most travel on the Mississippi River stopped. Clemens was forced to quit piloting. He traveled west to Carson City, Nevada, with his brother. Clemens enjoyed life in the American West. For a time he prospected, or searched for gold, but soon realized that he earned more money writing for newspapers.

In 1853, while working for a newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada, Clemens began using the pen name Mark Twain. Mark Twain was a riverboat term that meant the water was deep enough for a boat to travel in. For the next few years, Twain lived and wrote in California. He also traveled to the Hawaiian Islands and published his experiences in California newspapers.

In 1865, Twain's story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published in the New York Saturday Press. Newspapers all over the country reprinted the story. Twain became a nationally known storywriter. Soon he began his first lecture series in California. He was a huge success. For the rest of his life, Twain relied on his lectures to pay debts when he was not writing.

In 1869 Twain's first book, titled The Innocents Abroad, was published. After the book's success he married Olivia Langdon in 1870. The couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where they built a large house near other famous writers, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dudley Warner. The years Twain spent in Hartford were some of his happiest. He and his wife had three daughters—Susy, Clara, and Jean. It was also during those years that Twain wrote his best-known and most popular books.

Twain used the money he received from writing to begin his own book company. He also helped pay for the invention of a special newspaper machine. By 1894, both businesses had gone out of business, and Twain had lost most of his money. To save money, he moved his family to Europe. To pay off his debts, he continued to write and began to give speeches all over the world.

By 1898, Twain had repaid his debts completely, but personal sadness continued to affect his life. His oldest daughter, Susy, died two years earlier in 1896 at the family house in Hartford. Unwilling to return to the house, he and Olivia sold it in 1903. In 1905, Olivia died. Then his youngest daughter, Jean, died in 1909. These were the worst times in Twain's life. Although Twain kept writing, his stories seemed to lose the funny quality of his earlier works. After a trip to Bermuda, Twain died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910.

Throughout his life, Twain was a respected and popular American writer. For his writing, he was awarded honorary college degrees from Yale in the United States and from Oxford University in Britian. Author Ernest Hemingway said that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."