Mark Twain

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county in Tennessee. After Henry’s birth in 1832, the value of their farmland greatly depreciated and sent the Clemenses on the road again. Now they would stay with Jane’s sister in Florida, Missouri where she ran a successful business with her husband. Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in the small remote town of Florida, Missouri. Samuel’s parents, John Marshall and Jane Cohen 2 Lampton Clemens never gave up on their child, who was two months premature with little hope of survival. This was coincidentally the same night as the return of Halley’s Comet. The Clemenses were a superstitious family and believed that Halley’s Comet was a portent of good fortune. Writing as , Samuel L. Clemens would claim that Florida, Missouri “contained 100 people and I increased the population by one percent. It is more than the best man in history ever did for any other town” (Hoffman 15). 1847 proved to be a horrific year for John Clemens. He ventured to Palmyra in order to find work on the ...

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of Samuel’s works. He, however took his writing elsewhere. He wrote for the Carpet-Bag and the Philadelphia American Cohen 3 Courier, berating his old town and the Hannibal natives. He signed each work with the initials “S.L.C.” Orion left town for awhile and gave the duty of editor to Samuel. He quickly took advantage of Orion’s absence. He wrote articles of town news and prose poetry that revealed characteristics of the boy who would eventually transform into . In these articles he would use his first of many pseudonyms, W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. Orion’s return ended both Samuel’s developing humor and burning satire. Orion decided to publish the Journal daily and it gave Samuel an ...

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