The Man, Mark Twain

Often referred to as the father of American Literature, a well-known American humorist and author, Mark Twain was born November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. His birth name being Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he was born, the sixth child of seven, to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. On the night of his birth, the sky was filled with the light of Haley’s Comet, a comet Twain predicted would come again at the time of his death. Just as he had predicted, on April 21, 1910, Haley’s Comet filled the sky yet (bio.com).

When he was four years old, he and his family moved to the much larger city of Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain would spend the rest of his childhood. The Clemens family “became almost destitute” in 1847, when Twain’s father died, forcing his mother to become the head of the household. Though life became financially difficult for Twain and his family, Hannibal was a fairly pleasant place to grow up. Many of his most stories, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, are based on the same adventures he and his childhood friends endeavored (bio.com).

After serving at a series of jobs, In July of 1861, Twain headed west toward Nevada and California where he would finally start somewhat of a writing career. Moving to Virginia City, Nevada, he began working as a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. He covered the whole spectrum of the paper, from news stories to editorials and sketches. Around this time, he adopted the pen name “Mark Twain”, slang for 12 feet of water (which would be a breath of relief for steamboat captains, as it meant that it was finally safe to travel smoothly along the water). Twain had become the most famous story-teller in the west, and, by ag...

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...in).” Although Twain uses the word insane, this word can be exchanged with obstructed from the truth when referring to man’s refusal to change. Blindness by the illusion of an “author of the world”, or God, is confused by man to be happiness; therefore, he will be more reluctant to change when he is faced with the truth.

Works Cited

Eby, E.H. “Mark Twain’s Testament.” Modern Language Quarterly 23.3 (1962): 254.

“Mark Twain Biography.” Bio.com A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.

Royal, Derek Parker. “Terrible Dreams Of Creative Power. The Question of No. 44.” Studies In

The Novel 31.1 (1999): 44.

Simmons, Ryan. “Who Cares Who Wrote, “The Mysterious Stranger”?” College Literature 37.2

(2010): 125-146.

Twain, Mark. The Mysterious Stranger and other stories. New York: Harper & Bros., 1922. Print