Mark Twain
was also known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Twain was born in Florida Missouri, on November 30, 1835, he died April 21, 1910, he achieved worldwide fame during his lifetime as an author, lecturer, satirist, and humorist. Since his death his literary stature has further increased, with such writers as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner declaring his works, particularly HUCKLEBERRY FINN, a major influence on 20th-century American fiction.
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Mo., on the Mississippi River. His writing career began shortly after the death of his father in 1847. Apprenticed first to a printer, he soon joined his brother Orion's Hannibal Journal, supplying copy and becoming ...
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river, and that furnished the background for "Old Times on the Mississippi" (1875), later included in the expanded Life on the Mississippi (1883).
In 1861, Twain traveled by stagecoach to Carson City, Nev., with his brother Orion, who had been appointed territorial secretary. After unsuccessful attempts at silver and gold mining, he returned to writing as a correspondent for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. At first he signed his humorous and imaginative sketches "Josh," but early in 1863 he adopted the now-famous name “,” borrowed from the Mississippi leadsman's call meaning "two fathoms" deep or safe water for a steamboat.
Twain went to San Francisco in 1864. Dubbed the "Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope," he achieved a measure of national fame with his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). A trip to Hawaii in 1866 furnished articles for the Sacramento Union and materials for the first lecture, on his return, in a long and successful career ...
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Mark Twain. (2008, October 19). Retrieved December 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mark-Twain/91692
"Mark Twain." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mark-Twain/91692>
"Mark Twain." Essayworld.com. October 19, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mark-Twain/91692.
"Mark Twain." Essayworld.com. October 19, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Mark-Twain/91692.
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