Father of american Literature MARK TWAIN works and facts

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),Samuel Langhorne Clemens was welcomed into the world as the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Little did John and Jane know, their son Samuel would one day be known as Mark Twain - America's most famous literary icon. 

           Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. ... Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Approximately four years after his birth, in 1839, the Clemens family moved 35 miles east to the town of Hannibal. A growing port city that lay along the banks of the Mississippi, Hannibal was a frequent stop for steam boats arriving by both day and night from St. Louis and New Orleans. 

Samuel's father was a judge, and he built a two-story frame house at 206 Hill Street in 1844. As a youngster, Samuel was kept indoors because of poor health. However, by age nine, he seemed to recover from his ailments and joined the rest of the town's children outside. He then attended a private school in Hannibal. 

When Samuel was 12, his father died of pneumonia, and at 13, Samuel left school to become a printer's apprentice. After two short years, he joined his brother Orion's newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant. It was here that young Samuel found he enjoyed writing. 

At 17, he left Hannibal behind for a printer's job in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, Clemens became a river pilot's apprentice. He became a licensed river pilot in 1858.

Mark Twain’s Most Famous Books

The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Mark Twain’s account‚ adapted from his own newspaper reports‚ of his adventures traveling through Europe and the Middle East with other Americans. Voyaging on the steamship Quaker City‚ the sightseers first make stops in Europe‚ including Paris‚ Milan‚ Venice‚ Florence‚ Rome and Athens. Their journey culminates in an extended trip through the Holy Land and Egypt. Throughout the book‚ Twain lampoons the meeting of these pilgrims from the New World‚ filled with a pretentious reverence and awe‚ with the hallowed culture of the Old World‚ often represented by Twain as not equaling its reputation.

Roughing It (1872)

In 1861‚ a 25 year-old Sam Clemens‚ having left his job as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River because of the outbreak of the Civil War‚ set out by stagecoach with his older brother‚ Orion‚ for the Nevada Territory. Roughing It‚ part autobiography‚ part travelogue‚ part tall tale‚ is Twain’s account of the people and places he experienced when he and the American West still were young.

The Gilded Age (1873)

The Gilded Age‚ which Twain wrote in collaboration with his Hartford neighbor Charles Dudley Warner‚ gave its name to the mood of materialistic excess and cynical political corruption that started with the Grant administration in 1869 and prevailed into the 1870s and beyond. To be “gilded” is to be coated in gold‚ so the phrase “The Gilded Age” refers directly to the opulent tastes and jaded sensibilities of America’s wealthy during this period.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

From the Preface: “Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own‚ the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also‚ but not from an individual - he is a combination of the characteristics of 

Interesting Facts:  

1. Prior to adopting Mark Twain as his pen name, Clemens wrote under the pen name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass for three humorous pieces he contributed to The Keokuk Post.

2. On the Mississippi River, 'mark twain' meant 'two fathoms deep.'

3. Twain was very interested in parapsychology.

4. Mark Twain was fond of cats. His boyhood home is rumored to have been shared with as many as 19 cats. As an adult, Twain always kept at least two cats around.

5. Haley's Comet was visible in the sky on the night that Mark Twain was both born and passed away.

6. Clemens encouraged his younger brother, Henry, to get a job as a steamboat pilot as well. Henry was killed when the boiler on board his boat exploded. Clemens claimed to have seen his brother's death in a dream before it happened, sparking an interest in parapsychology.

7. Mark Twain was said to have been working on a ghost story right before his death. No one ever found it for he ordered all his manuscripts burned when he died.

8. Twain was a Thomas Edison manque. Three of his inventions were patented: an automatically self-adjusting vest strap, a history game meant for improving memory, and a self-pasting scrapbook--the only one ever to make him any money.

9. Twain was known for his stance against racism and for supporting the abolition of slavery, but he was oddly prejudiced against Native Americans.

10. He was also critical of organized religion, and very much in favor of labor unions. He also belonged to the Freemasons.

11. Mark Twain was one of seven children; however, he lost three of siblings in childhood.

12. With very little formal schooling, Mark Twain spent evenings in libraries educating himself where school had left off.

13. Before 13, he nearly drowned 9 documented times.

14. He worked as a printer at 18 and traveled to many large US cities, which gave the young Twain a larger perspective.

15. Mark Twain was a pen name he picked up while writing for the Virginia City newspaper, which he first wrote under in 1863.

16. He also wrote under Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab, Sergeant Fathom, and Rambler during his career.

17. Twain was only a steamboat pilot for two years. His career was cut short by the Civil War in 1861.

18. Early in the game’s life, Twain loved baseball and understood it well, which was not well known until later in his life.

19. In Harper’s, his first article was mistakenly credited to MacSwain.

20. Twain despised the idea of a “big” government.

21. Bermuda was always a favorite of Twain’s getaways.

22. Mark Twain suffered from bouts of depression and physically from years of constipation. Tesla shocked Twain in Twain’s first Tesla Salon, which Twain swore cured his constipation. The two became life long friends following the event.

23. With an accrued debt, Mark Twain traveled the world as a lecturer for hire. Between 1895-1896, he had 140 engagements spanning numerous contents. He later published this time in Following the Equator in 1897.

24. On his deathbed, Twain read and re-read Carlyle’s rendition of the French Revolution.

25. Halley’s Comet transverses the Earth’s skies every 75 years. Mark Twain just so happened to be born following Halley’s comet, and in 1909 he predicted that he would go with Halley’s comet the next year. Just as Mark Twain predicted, he passed the night after the comet lit up the sky at the age of 75. It was the second death he predicted, the first being his brother’s.

26. His wife’s name was Olivia Langdon and they were married for 34 years.

27. Olivia and Mark had four children: Susy, Langdon, Clara and Jean Clemens.

28. Their son Langdon died of diptheria at the age of 19 months. His daughter Suzy and Jean both died in their 20s. Clemens' surviving daughter, Clara, lived until 1962 and had a daughter of her own who died childless. There are no direct heirs to Clemens surviving today.

29. Twain dined with Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1892 while traveling through Europe.

30. Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is considered to be one of the first science fiction books ever published. Twain had a keen interest in science and technology and was a close friend of Dr. Nikola Tesla.

31. In 1867 Twain developed a serious enjoyment of billiards. He enjoyed the game for the rest of his life.

32. After his short stint in the Civil War, Twain moved to Nevada and worked as a miner.

33. In 1868 Twain met Harriet Beecher Stowe.

34. Twain gave Anne Sullivan the label “miracle worker” for her work with Helen Keller.

35. Bermuda was the last foreign locale Twain visited before he died.

36. Twain’s first important work was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, originally published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. The only reason it was published there was because his story arrived too late to be included in a book that Artemus Ward was compiling, featuring sketches of the wild American West.

37. The character of Huckleberry Finn was modeled after Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship. "He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had," Twain wrote of Blankenship in his autobiography. "His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person—boy or man—in the community, and by consequence he was tra

nquilly and continuously happy and envied by the rest of us. And as his society was forbidden us by our parents the prohibition trebled and quadrupled its value, and therefore we sought and got more of his society than any other boy's."

38. Twain's father died of pneumonia when Mark was 12. At 13 he began working for his brother Orion as an apprentice printer. It was here that he discovered a love for writing.

39. Twain first donned his famous white suit in 1906, when he appeared before Congress to testify about copyright law. On what may have been a slow news day, the New York Times carried a headline the ne

xt day proclaiming "Mark Twain in White Amuses Congressmen." 

40.He wore a white suit from then on, arguing that "light-colored clothing is more pleasing to the eye and enlivens the spirit." He called it his "dontcareadam suit," because he didn't care a damn what he looked like when he wore it.

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