| Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens) |
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Writer (1835-1910) |  |
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Raised in Hannibal, Missouri, Samuel Clemens had passed through several careers by his thirtieth birthday: journeyman printer, riverboat pilot, silver prospector, newspaper reporter. In his first newspaper job, at the Virginia City (Nevada) Enterprise, he adopted his famous pen name, Mark Twain. In 1865, he gained overnight fame with the short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." published in The Saturday Press and widely reprinted. He continued to travel widely over the next few years, giving lectures (a major source of income and fame throughout his life) and filing correspondent reports for various newspapers. In 1869, he drew on his European sojourn for Innocents Abroad, a travel narrative which satirized both local cultures and American tourists. |
 | | Samuel Longhorne Clemens (1835-1910) | | © 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin |
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In 1871, Twain settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he produced a series of well-known books over the next four decades. His distinctive writing style blended folk humor, barbed satire, and an unparalleled grasp of American idioms. Several works revisited--and embellished--his past experiences: Roughing It (1872), his prospecting trip out west; Tom Sawyer (1876), his childhood in Hannibal; and Life on the Mississippi (1883), his riverboat piloting years. His greatest novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, appeared in 1884. Unwise investments bankrupted Twain in the 1890s, but an exhaustive world lecture tour paid off his debts and restored some of his wealth. The death of two daughters and his wife left him dejected in old age. In his late writings, Twain's satiric edge often gave way to bitter pessimism, most notably in his autobiography (published posthumously in 1924).
SOURCES: Encyclopedia of American Biography; Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. |
