Mark Twain, the Classic American Writer

Twain felt that his father had died bankrupt from financing his money in things that failed because of bad timing. He soon learned the techniques of timing. Twain left his apprenticeship at the printing press and found another job apprenticing himself on a steam boat on the Mississippi River. Twain felt that this was valuable training and that it was the first time he really got to use his mind. Working on the steam boat made Twain become well known with nature.

Clemens family moved to Hannibal Missouri when he was four ("Mark Twain." Wikipedia.). The first 10 years of his life, the Clemens family were not particularly healthy ("Mark Twain (American Writer)."). When ever he was healthy, he spent his younger years running around with the local boys that lived around the Mississippi River with him ("Mark Twain: Childhood."). As Clemens grew up he wanted to become steamboat pilot because he saw many of steamboats while living on the Mississippi River ("Mark Twain: Childhood.").

“The gamblers, stevedores, and pilots, the boisterous raftsmen and elegant travelers, all bound for somewhere surely glamorous and exciting, would have impressed a young boy and stimulated his already active imagination.” (History) It really seemed like nothing he did wasn’t exciting, just like throughout his books. Parts of his family owned slave which lead to Samuel listening and learning about all the stories from their past. “In 1847‚ when Sam was 11‚ his father died. Shortly thereafter he left school‚ having completed the fifth grade‚ to work as a printer’s apprentice for a local newspaper.” (Mark Twain House) This was the beginning to many new writing jobs besides the one that he had as a riverboat pilot. He bumped around jobs for a while before even getting a recognition for any of his writings.

The Importance of Mark Twain in American Literature Mark Twain is important to American literature because of his novels and how they portray the American experience. Some of his best selling novels were Innocents Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In these books, Mark Twain recalls his own adventures of steamboating on the Mississippi River. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in a small village of Florida, Missouri. His parent's names were John Marshall Clemens and Jan Lampton Clemens, descendants of slaves in Virginia.

Biography of Mark Twain Mark Twain was a writer whose works revolved around his childhood experiences growing up on the Mississippi River. The main source of his writing was the time he spent in Hannibal, Missouri as a young boy. He also used his childhood friends in many of his work, such as modeling the character Sid in Huck Finn after his brother Henry. Twain also used the happy times in his life to express his feeling in his writings. Twain used the trials of his life to make his works humorous and all-time American classics.

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN AUTHOR’S SKETCH Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. When Samuel Clemens was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he spent his childhood. Clemens first approach to literature was through typesetting for a newspaper in 1851. At the time Orion, his brother, was a newspaper publisher in Hannibal. From 1857 until 1861, he served as the pilot of a riverboat on the Mississippi River.

After engaging in several failed business ventures, Twain moved West to find new work. At the same time, he sent small sketches to Orion. In his journey West, Twain stumbled upon the Mississippi River. Horace Bixby taught him every corner of the 2,000 mile long river. Bixby not only taught him piloting a steamboat, but he also shared many superstitions that can be found in Twain’s works (Fredericks).

Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual -- he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture (Twain 1). Throughout the book, Tom takes his friends on adventures that get them in a lot of trouble. Tom’s friends include Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s friend Joe Harper, and his romantic interest Becky Thatcher. Tom lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri that is located along the Mississippi river. He lives with his Aunt Polly (Sandock).

Mark Twain is not just famous for his writings, but his achievements, home life, and greatest accomplishments are what has made him the famous writer known today. Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in a small town called Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth of seven children of his father, John Marshall and mother Jane Lampton Clemens and only three of his siblings would survive to adulthood. At the age of four, Mark moved to Hannibal, Missouri a port town next to the Mississippi river in hopes to a better and improved living condition. Hannibal consisted of slaveholding families that provided a mix of southern tradition and frontier life, a lifestyle that would later influence Twain’s writings, including the Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 2033-35.