Mark Twain

Juan Samala

Grace High School

11th Grade Report

MARK TWAIN

"Mark Twain, which is a pseudonym for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in 1835, and died in 1910. He was an American writer and humorist. Maybe one of the reasons twain will be remembered is because his writings contained morals and positive views. Because Twain's writing is so descriptive, people look to his books for realistic interpretations of places, for his memorable characters, and his ability to describe his hatred for hypocrisy and oppression. He believed he could write. Most authors relied on other people and what they said, but because twain was so solitary, he made himself so successful.

"When he was younger, his family moved. When he was four years old, his family moved Clemens (Twain) into a port city on the Mississippi River called Hannibal; however, his birthplace was Florida, Missouri. This was stated in a newspaper I found in my uncles office. Missouri was their favorite place he ever lived because it was where he felt most respected. In Hannibal, we learned that Twain was a very descriptive writer. He then received a public school education because he was very successful.

When his father died in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers and that was one of his favorite occupations. In 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal. While he worked as a printer, he lived in many cities such as, Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and a few others. Later Clemens was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, which pulled him away from the publishing business, until the American Civil War brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in the Confederate Calvary because he always wanted to.

Later that year he accompanied his brother to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, which brought him back to the writing he loved, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the name Mark Twain. He picked 'Twain' for his writing name because it reminded him of an old Mississippi River phrase meaning "two fathoms deep." In San Francisco, California in 1864, Twain moved and met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work. In 1854 Twain reworked a tale that he had heard in the California gold fields, and within months the author and the story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," had become national sensations.

Twain lectured in New York City in 1867 and in the same year he visited Europe and Palestine because he loved 'antique' places of sight seeing. He wrote of these travels in "The Innocents Abroad" (1869), which is a book exaggerating those aspects of European culture that impress American tourists. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon. "When the new couple first married, they lived in Buffalo, New York. Then they moved to Hartford, Connecticut.

"Much of Twain's best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s in Hartford or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York. ''Roughing It'' (1872) which recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist was first. In a story called "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" he was stated that Quarry Farm was Twain's favorite place he ever resided. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) which celebrates boyhood in a town on the Mississippi River was his second novel. "A Tramp Abroad" (1880) which describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps was an account of his travels abroad. "The Prince and the Pauper" (1882), which is a children's book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England. " Life on the Mississippi" (1883) which combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it was also written in account that derived from his travels. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889) which satirizes oppression in feudal England was one of the last novels he wrote."

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "(1884), the sequel to Tom Sawyer, is considered Twain's masterpiece." "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was an adventure story, the story of the title character known as Huck, a boy who flees his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. "Because of the cruelty that men are capable of, the pair's adventures show time and again the dangers of being alone in the world. Another theme of the novel is that the conflict between Huck's feelings of friendship with Jim, who is one of the few people he can trust, and his knowledge that he is breaking the laws of the time by helping Jim escape's" Huckleberry Finn, which is almost entirely narrated from Huck's point of view, is noted for its authentic language and for its deep commitment to freedom. "Huck's adventures also provide the reader