Mark Twain Research Paper

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Mark Twain Early Life And Achievements

Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was an American author, essayist, and humorist who wrote a series of famous books including ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.’ Hailed as the "the father of American literature" by William Faulkner, Twain was known for not just his humorous writings and satire but also his radical views on imperialism, organized religion, and civil rights. He was a very popular figure and was friends with the president's, prominent industrialists, and even the European royalty. Born into a humble family in Missouri, he had a difficult childhood. The untimely death of his father in 1847 forced 11 year old Samuel to take up a job to support …show more content…

A staunch anti-imperialist, he was made the vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League in 1901. He also supported civil rights and women’s suffrage.
In addition to those well-known works, Twain also wrote five travelogues that detailed his experiences in the Western U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and along the Mississippi.

In 1857, at the age of twenty-two, Sam Clemens boarded a steamboat and headed to New Orleans. He planned to take a trip to South America. Instead, he met the steamboat pilot Horace Bixby, who agreed to let Clemens train with him as a riverboat pilot for a fee of five hundred dollars. For the next two years, Clemens learned how to pilot a riverboat on the Mississippi River. He gained his piloting license in April 1859 and made a good living until the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 when all commercial traffic on the river stopped. Clemens then joined the Marion Rangers, a group of Confederate volunteers that disbanded after only two …show more content…

Twain was brought up in Hannibal, Missouri, a town on the great Mississippi River. At the age of 11, his father died, and the next year Twain had to gain employment as a printer’s apprentice. From an early age, he began contributing articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal. At the age of 18, he left Missouri and went to New York, Philadelphia and St Louis. He furthered his education in public libraries and became active in the print unions. He was a vocal supporter of organised labour throughout his life, seeing how businesses were in a position to offer poor conditions and low pay to

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