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Mark Twain

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Writers and critics

   CAPTION: Samuel Langhorne Clemens

   Pseudonym(s):  Mark Twain
       Born:      November 30, 1835
                  Florida, Missouri
       Died:      April 21, 1910
                  Redding, Connecticut
   Occupation(s): Humorist, novelist, writer
    Nationality:  American
     Genre(s):    Historical fiction, non-fiction, satire

   Samuel Langhorne Clemens ( November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better
   known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist,
   writer, and lecturer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of
   Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (amongst other
   works), and his numerous quotes and sayings.

   Although Twain was confounded by financial and business affairs, he
   enjoyed immense public popularity. His keen wit and incisive satire
   earned him praise from both critics and peers. Fellow author William
   Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."

Biography

Youth

   Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, to John
   Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens. When Twain was four, his
   family moved to Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River that
   would serve 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 in the union and young Twain was
   familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he later explored in
   his writing.

   Twain was colorblind, a condition that fueled his witty banter in the
   social circles of the day. In March of 1847 when Twain was eleven, his
   father died of pneumonia. The following year, Twain became a printers
   apprentice and in 1851 began working as a typesetter and contributor of
   articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper
   owned by his older brother, Orion. When he was eighteen, he left
   Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis,
   and Cincinnati. When he was 22 years old, Twain returned to Missouri.
   On a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi, the steamboat pilot,
   "Bixby", inspired Twain to pursue a career as a steamboat pilot, the
   third highest paying profession in America at the time earning $250 per
   month ($155,000 today), a "princely amount". Because the steamboats at
   the time were constructed of very dry flammable wood no lamps were
   allowed, making night travel a precarious endeavor. A steamboat pilot
   needed a vast knowledge of the ever-changing river to be able to stop
   at any of the hundreds of ports (to take on and discharge passengers
   and freight) and wood-lots along the river banks (to purchase fuel for
   the steam boilers). Twain meticulously studied 2000 miles of the
   Mississippi for more than two years until he finally received his
   steamboat pilot license in 1858. He worked as a river pilot until the
   American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi
   was curtailed.

Traveling in the West

   Missouri, although a slave state and considered by many to be part of
   the South, declined to join the Confederacy and remained loyal to the
   Union. When the war began, Clemens and his friends formed a Confederate
   militia (an experience he depicted in his 1885 short story, " The
   Private History of a Campaign That Failed"), but he saw no military
   action and the militia disbanded after two weeks. His friends joined
   the Confederate Army; Clemens joined his brother, Orion, who had been
   appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada, and headed
   west. They traveled for more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the
   Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the silver-mining town of
   Virginia City, Nevada. On the way, they visited the Mormon community in
   Salt Lake City. Clemens' experiences in the West contributed
   significantly to his formation as a writer, and became the basis of his
   second book, Roughing It.

   Once in Nevada, Clemens became a miner, hoping to strike it rich
   discovering silver in the Comstock Lode. He stayed for long periods in
   camp with his fellow prospectors—another life experience that he later
   put to literary use. After failing as a miner, Clemens obtained work at
   a newspaper called the Daily Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City.
   It was there he first adopted the pen name "Mark Twain" on February 3,
   1863, when he signed a humorous travel account with his new name.

Life as a writer

   In 1867, on a tour of Europe and the Middle East (the source for his
   later collection of travel letters The Innocents Abroad), Clemens met
   Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia. Clemens
   claims to have fallen in love at first sight; in 1868, Clemens met her.
   The two became engaged a year later and were married in February 1870
   in Elmira, New York. After settling in Buffalo, Olivia gave birth to a
   son, Langdon, who died of diphtheria after 19 months. They went on to
   have three daughters: Susy, Clara, and Jean. Their marriage lasted for
   34 years until Olivia's death in 1904. Clemens outlived Jean and Susy.
   Clemens passed through a period of deep depression, which began in 1896
   when he received word on a lecture tour in England that his favorite
   daughter, Susy, had died of meningitis. His wife's death in 1904, and
   the loss of a second daughter, Jean, on December 24, 1909, deepened his
   gloom.

   In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:


   Mark Twain

    I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year,
   and I expect to go out 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 two unaccountable freaks; they came
                   in together, they must go out together.


   Mark Twain

   Samuel Langhorne Clemens died of angina pectoris on April 21, 1910 in
   Redding, Connecticut. Upon hearing of Twain's death, President Taft
   said:


   Mark Twain

   Mark Twain gave pleasure -- real intellectual enjoyment -- to millions,
    and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to
    come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated
    by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen.
            He has made an enduring part of American literature.


   Mark Twain

   Mark Twain is buried in his wife's family plot in Elmira, New York.

Career overview

   Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, spring of 1894
   Enlarge
   Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, spring of 1894

   Also popular are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the
   Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and the non-fiction
   book Life on the Mississippi.

   Beginning as a writer of light, humorous verse, Twain evolved into a
   grim, almost profane chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and
   murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he
   combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism in a way
   that is almost unrivaled in world literature.

   Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech, and helped to create
   and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American
   themes and language.

   Twain also had a fascination with science and scientific inquiry. He
   developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, and the two
   spent quite a bit of time together in Tesla's laboratory, among other
   places. Such fascination can be seen in Twain's book A Connecticut
   Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which features a time traveler from the
   America of Twain's day, using his knowledge of science to introduce
   modern technology to Arthurian England. Twain also patented an
   improvement in adjustable and detachable straps for garments.

   Mark Twain was opposed to vivisection of any kind, not on a scientific
   basis, but rather an ethical one, in which he states that no sentient
   being should be made to suffer for another without consent. He later
   commented on his views:

     I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results
     that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. ... The pain which
     it inficts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity
     toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity
     without looking further.

   From 1901 until his death in 1910, Twain was vice president of the
   American Anti-Imperialist League. The League opposed the annexation of
   the Philippines by the United States. Twain wrote Incident in the
   Philippines, posthumously published in 1924, in response to the Moro
   Crater Massacre, in which six hundred Moros were killed. Many but not
   all of Mark Twain's neglected and previously uncollected writings on
   anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.
   Mark Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for his
   DLitt degree, awarded to him by Oxford University.
   Enlarge
   Mark Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for his
   DLitt degree, awarded to him by Oxford University.

   From the time of its publication there have been occasional attempts to
   ban Huckleberry Finn from various libraries because Twain's use of
   local colour is offensive to some people. Although Twain was against
   racism and imperialism far ahead of the public sentiment of his time,
   those who have only superficial familiarity with his work have
   sometimes condemned it as racist because it accurately depicts language
   in common use in the 19th-century United States. Expressions that were
   used casually and unselfconsciously then are often perceived today as
   racist; today, such racial epithets are far more visible and condemned.
   Twain himself would probably be amused by these attempts; in 1885, when
   a library in Concord, Massachusetts banned the book, he wrote to his
   publisher, "They have expelled Huck from their library as 'trash
   suitable only for the slums'; that will sell 25,000 copies for us for
   sure."

   Many of Mark Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various
   reasons. When an anonymous slim volume was published in 1880 entitled
   1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of
   the Tudors., Twain was among those rumored to be the author. The issue
   was not settled until 1906, when Twain acknowledged his literary
   paternity of this scatological masterpiece.

   At least Twain saw 1601 published during his lifetime. During the
   Philippine-American War, Twain wrote an anti-war article entitled The
   War Prayer. Through this internal struggle, Twain expresses his
   opinions of the absurdity of slavery and the importance of following
   one's personal conscience before the laws of society. It was submitted
   to Harper's Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905, the magazine
   rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight
   days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read
   the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None
   but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an
   exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish
   The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923.

   In later years, Twain's family suppressed some of his work which was
   especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably Letters
   from the Earth, which was not published until 1962. The anti-religious
   The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916, although there is some
   scholarly debate as to whether Twain actually wrote the most familiar
   version of this story. Twain was critical of organized religion and
   certain elements of the Christian religion through most of the end of
   his life, though he never renounced Presbyterianism

Financial matters

   Although Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing,
   he squandered much of it through bad investments, mostly through new
   inventions. These included the bed clamp for infants, a new type of
   steam engine that he had to sell for scrap, the kaolatype (a machine
   designed to engrave printing plates), the Paige typesetting machine
   (this investment was over $200,000 and, while a technical marvel, was
   too complex for wide commercial use), and finally, his publishing house
   that—while enjoying initial success by selling the memoirs of Ulysses
   S. Grant—went bust soon after.

   Fortunately, Twain's writings and lectures enabled him to recover
   financially. , especially with the help of financier Henry Huttleston
   Rogers, with whom he developed a close friendship beginning in 1894,
   one that was to last another 15 years until Rogers' death in 1909.

Legacy

   A statue of Mark Twain at Mark Twain Elementary School in the Braeswood
   Place neighborhood of Houston, Texas
   Enlarge
   A statue of Mark Twain at Mark Twain Elementary School in the Braeswood
   Place neighbourhood of Houston, Texas

   His birthplace is preserved in Florida, Missouri, and the Mark Twain
   Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri, is one of the most
   popular museums because it provided the setting for much of Twain's
   work. The home of a childhood friend is preserved as the "Thatcher
   House" and is said to be the inspiration for his fictional character
   Becky Thatcher. Clemens was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford,
   and the robes he wore to that ceremony and on many other occasions
   afterwards (including one daughter's wedding) are on display in the
   museum. Visitors to Hannibal can also tour the Mark Twain Cave and ride
   a riverboat on the Mississippi River. In 1874 Twain built a family home
   in Hartford, Connecticut, where he and Livy raised their three
   daughters. That home is preserved and open to visitors as the Mark
   Twain House. Twain lived in many homes in the United States and abroad.

   Several schools are named after Twain. One school, Twain Elementary
   School in Houston, has a statue of Twain sitting on a bench.

Pen names

   Clemens used different pen names before deciding on Mark Twain. He
   signed humorous and imaginative sketches "Josh" until 1863. He
   maintained that his primary pen name, "Mark Twain", came from his years
   working on Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms (12 ft,
   apporoximately 3.7 m) or "safe water" was measured on the sounding
   line. The riverboatman's cry was "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the
   mark twain" ("twain" is an archaic term for two). "By the mark twain"
   meant "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two
   fathoms".

   Clemens claimed that his famous pen name was not entirely his
   invention. In Chapter 50 of Life on the Mississippi he wrote:


   Mark Twain

     Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he
   used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about
   the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN," and give them to the New Orleans
     Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and
   were accurate and valuable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought
    the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new
    journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient
    mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what
    it was in his hands—a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is
    found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth;
         how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.


   Mark Twain

   Regardless of the source of the name, "CACAPOOPOOPEEPEESHIRE," the
   alter ego of Samuel Clemens, was "born" in February, 1863 when the name
   first appeared on an article published in the Nevada Territorial
   Enterprise.
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