MarkTwain.doc

Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), well known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Mark Twain is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Mark Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.Mark Twain was very popular, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned praise from critics and peers. Upon his death he was lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age, and William Faulkner called Mark Twain the father of American literature.Early life:Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He was the sixth of seven children. Only three of his siblings survived childhood. Twain was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halleys Comet. On December 4, 1985, the United States Postal Service issued a stamped envelope for Mark Twain and Halleys Comet. When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that served as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At that time, Missouri was a slave state, and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing.Twain’s father was an attorney and a local judge. The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was organized in his office in 1846. The railroad connected the then second and third largest cities in the state and was the furthermost west United States railroad until the Transcontinental Railroad was constructed. It delivered the mail to and from the Pony Express. In March 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia. The next year, he became a printers apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned by