Mark Twain

Mark Twain was the pet name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens ,who is one of the greates authors of American fiction.Twain's varied works include novels, travel narratives, short stories, sketches, and essays. His writings about the Mississippi River, such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, have been especially popular for modern readers.Mark Twain was born on Nov. 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. In 1839, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a village on the Mississippi River.After his father died in debt in 1847, Twain went to work for a newspaper and printing firm. In 1851, he began assisting his older brother Orion in the production of a newspaper, the Hannibal Journal. He continued to do writing and sketches for several years.Like many American authors of his day, Twain had little formal education. Instead of attending high school and college, he gained his education in print shops, newspaper offices, and public libraries.
The beginning of the American Civil War (1861-1865) abruptly closed commercial traffic on the Mississippi River. After serving for two weeks with a Confederate volunteer company, Twain chose not to become involved in the war. He traveled to Carson City, Nevada, in 1861 with his brother Orion. Later, in Roughing It (1872), Twain humorously described his unsuccessful attempts at prospecting for gold and silver during this time and his eventual conclusion that he must support himself by newspaper journalism. He joined the staff of the Virginia City, Nevada, Territorial Enterprise in the summer of 1862. He first began publishing under his pen name on Feb. 3, 1863, while working for the Enterprise. "Mark Twain" comes from a riverboat term meaning two fathoms.
In 1867, Twain took a voyage to Europe and the Holy Land aboard the steamship Quaker City.Encouraged by the prospect of future wealth from a literary career, Twain courted a young woman from Elmira, New York, named Olivia L. Langdon, whose brother had sailed with him on the Quaker City. By in the beging of 1870 Mark had been marryed to her and had on child but had died, Though they had 3 girls who were bor between 1872 and 1880.
Mark Twain faced financial problems because lost almost $200,000 in investments in the machine between 1881 and 1894. Also, his publishing company declared bankruptcy in April 1894. Thus, in January 1895, Twain found himself publicly humiliated by his inability to pay his debts.Although he was recovering from his financial problems by 1898, he faced many trageties such as:Susy, his oldest daughter, died of meningitis in 1896, while her parents and sister Clara were abroad. In 1903, Twain sold the beloved house in Hartford, which had become too closely associated with Susy's death. His wife, Olivia, who had developed a heart condition, died on June 5, 1904. His youngest daughter, Jean, died on Dec. 24, 1909.
As Twain's career progressed, he seemed to become increasingly removed from the humorous, cocky image of his younger days. More and more of his works came to express the gloomy view that all human motives are ultimately selfish.Twain died of heart disease on April 21, 1910. He left behind numerous unpublished manuscripts. One pessimistic but fascinating tale, The Mysterious Stranger, was published in 1916, after Twain's death. This story, which exists in three versions, describes a visit by Satan to an Austrian village in 1590. The first volume of a three-volume Autobiography of Mark Twain was published in 2010