Mark+Twain

=Mark Twain= toc

 Mark Twain was a writer from the 1800's. In the opinion of some people he was the greatest writer of the century. Most people don't know that Mark Twain's real name is Samuel Clemens. A part of his great life will be told below.

Starting Off
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who used the name "Mark Twain" when writing, was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. In 1839 he and his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri where he grew up. He had one younger brother named Orion. In his early years, he worked as a pilot on a riverboat, in the Mississippi river, close to his home. During school Mark is quoted saying he "only excelled in spelling". He got most of his education from the places he worked as a child. After his father died in 1847, Mark became an apprentice to a painter, to make money for the family.

Books and Other Works
Mark Twain accomplished many things in his life. He has written numerous books and short stories, but the one that made him famous was "The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County". He wrote this story in 1865 while he was working in California. When ever Clemens came out with a new book or story he would use a pen name to protect himself from fans and critics. He tried several different pen names before he settled on Mark Twain. Mark Twain, in river boat talk, means "two fathoms". Some people were offended by free language, but Twain said that the only reason he used his words so freely was because it brought his characters to life; he wrote the way his characters would have talked during the time period in which he wrote. Some of Mark Twain's most famous books are:__The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County__ (1865), __The Adventures of Tom Sawer__ (1876), __The Prince and the Pauper__ (1882), __A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court__ (1889), and __The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn__ (1894).

Home Life
In 1861 Twain went to Nevada to look for gold, like so many other Americans of the time, but he was unsuccessful in finding any. While he was there he worked for the local newspaper where he wrote hilarious stories about the other people that were there. Some of the stories were published in the newspaper and can still be found today. In 1870 Mark twain married Olivia Langod. They were married for 34 years, until her death in 1904. They settled in Hartford, Connecticut. During those 34 years they had four children. Their first, a son, died at only 19 months old. A few years after his unfortunate death they had a daughter named Susy, and then another named Clara, and then their last Jean. All but Clara, died before they reached their twenties, she lived to be eighty-eight. These years were Mark's most productive, between 1873 and 1889, he wrote seven novels.

Travels
Very early in his life Mark Twain wanted to travel. In his early years as a traveler he went to New Orleans, where he work got his pilot's license to a steamboat. He traveled as a correspondent for several newspapers in Europe. In 1869 his letters of his travels experiences were all brought together in a book called __The Innocents Abroad__.

Ending the Legacy
In 1904 (as stated above) Olivia died, after that it was all down hill for Twain. A few years later Mark Twain went into a deep depression when his favorite daughter, Susy, died. He is quoted in 1909 saying, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these 2 unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together'" The strange thing is, Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut. His death came one day after the comet got closest to the Earth. Mark Twain wrote many great stories and novels that will continue to be read everyday.