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Mark Twain, pseudonym
of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, described himself as
southern writer. And he is credited with introducing America's
South all around the world. Born on November 30,
1835 in Florida,
Missouri, his family moved to
Hannibal,
Missouri, a rural town along the
Mississippi when he was four years old.
During
his youth, Clemens developed strong ties to the
Mississippi River, as steamboats stopped in Hannibal
up to three times a day.
In 1848, a year after his father's death, he was an
apprentice to a local printer, who published the
Missouri Courier. By the age of 16, in 1851, Clemens
wrote his first published sketches for the Hannibal
Western Union. One year later his sketches were
published in Philadelphia's
Saturday Evening Post. At eighteen, he left
Missouri
to travel the world and write about
everything he experienced.
Under
the pen name Mark Twain, he was a writer, journalist
and humorist. He won an international audience
for his travelogue, Innocents Abroad, and his
fictional adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
Huckleberry Finn. Some of his other great
works, include
The Tragedy of Puddin' Head Wilson,
A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaverus County
is still considered one of the best short stories
every written.
Twain’s success gave him the financial security he
needed to marry Olivia Langdon, a native upstate New
Yorker. They settled down in Connecticut
while he continued to lecture in the United States
and England. Between 1876 and 1884 he
published several masterpieces including the
aforementioned Tom Sawyer (1881) and
Huckleberry Finn in 1884, as well as
The Prince and the Pauper
(1881). Life on the Mississippi
(1883).
After the death of Olivia, Twain's health
began deteriorating. This was a dark time in his
life as his autobiography, published posthumously
reflects. In April of 1910, at the age of 74,
Mark Twain died in his bed. A large
funeral procession was held in New York City, and a
service was held at the Presbyterian Brick Church.
He was buried alongside his wife and children
at Woodlawn Cemetery,
in Elmira, New York.
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