Mark Twain
Biography
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was a famous and popular American humorist, novelist, writer and lecturer. At his peak, he was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. William Faulkner wrote that Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs". Clemens maintained that the name "Mark Twain" came from his years on the riverboat, where two fathoms (12 ft, approximately 3.7 m) or "safe water" was measured on the sounding line, was marked by calling "mark twain". But it is often thought that the name actually came from his wilder days in the West, where he would buy two drinks and tell the bartender to "mark twain" on his tab. The true origin is unknown. In addition to Mark Twain, Clemens used the pseudonym "Sieur Louis de Conte". Mark Twain was "born" here, in the office of the Nevada Territorial Enterprise, when Clemens first used that name on an article published 3 February 1863. Clemens died on 21 April 1910. Halley's Comet was again visible in the night sky. MT's first novel was The Gilded Age, 1873. Oxford awarded Samuel L. Clemens the LLD (Doctor of Letters) in 1907. In 1894, over $100,000 in debt, MT declared bankruptcy. Early life Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, the third of four surviving children of John and Jane Clemens. When he was four years old, the family moved to the river town of Hannibal, Missouri, hoping their fortunes would improve there. It was this town and its inhabitants that the author Mark Twain later put to such imaginative use in his most famous works, especially The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Clemens' father died in 1847, leaving many debts. The oldest son, Orion, soon began publishing a newspaper and Sam began contributing to it as a journeyman printer and occasional writer. Some of the liveliest and most controversial stories in Orion's paper came from the pen of his younger brother - usually when Orion was out of town. Clemens also traveled to St. Louis and New York City to earn a living as a printer. But the lure of the Mississippi eventually drew Clemens to a career as a steamboat pilot, a profession he later claimed would have held him to the end of his days, recounting his experiences in his book Life on the Mississippi (1883). Clemens said that the characters he met on the river were a great help to him as he enjoyed reading more. He met every sort of character on the river. There was Horace Bixby (later the head pilot of the Union fleet), who took him on as a cub pilot, Mr. Brown, a tyrannical pilot who made Clemens feel like an emancipated slave when he no longer had to put up with him. His younger brother Henry was killed in a boiler explosion. But the Civil War and the advent of railroads put an end to commercial steamboat traffic in 1861, and Clemens had to look for a new job. After a brief stint with a local militia (an experience he recounted in his short story, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" in 1885), he escaped further contact with the war by going west in July of 1861 with Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada. The two traveled for two weeks across the Plains by stagecoach to the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada.
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