Mark+Twain

On Nov. 30, 1835, the small town of Florida, Mo. witnessed the birth of its most famous son. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was welcomed into the world as the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Little did John and Jane know, their son Samuel would one day be known as Mark Twain - America's most famous literary icon.
 * Mark Twain Biography**

Approximately four years after his birth, in 1839, the Clemens family moved 35 miles east to the town of Hannibal. A growing port city that lie along the banks of the Mississippi, Hannibal was a frequent stop for steam boats arriving by both day and night from St. Louis and New Orleans.

Samuel's father was a judge, and he built a two-story frame house at 206 Hill Street in 1844. As a youngster, Samuel was kept indoors because of poor health. However, by age nine, he seemed to recover from his ailments and joined the rest of the town's children outside. He then attended a private school in Hannibal.

When Samuel was 12, his father died of pneumonia, and at 13, Samuel left school to become a printer's apprentice. After two short years, he joined his brother Orion's newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant. It was here that young Samuel found he enjoyed writing.

At 17, he left Hannibal behind for a printer's job in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, Clemens became a river pilot's apprentice. He became a licensed river pilot in 1858. Clemens' pseudonym, Mark Twain, comes from his days as a river pilot. It is a river term which means two fathoms or 12-feet when the depth of water for a boat is being sounded. "Mark twain" means that is safe to navigate.

Because the river trade was brought to a stand still by the Civil War in 1861, Clemens began working as a newspaper reporter for several newspapers all over the United States. In 1870, Clemens married Olivia Langdon, and they had four children, one of whom died in infancy and two who died in their twenties. Their surviving child, Clara, lived to be 88, and had one daughter. Clara's daughter died without having any children, so there are no direct descendants of Samuel Clemens living.

Twain began to gain fame when his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County" appeared in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. Twain's first book, "The Innocents Abroad," was published in 1869, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" in 1876, and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in 1885. He wrote 28 books and numerous short stories, letters and sketches.

Mark Twain passed away on April 21, 1910, but has a following still today. His childhood home is open to the public as a museum in Hannibal, and Calavaras County in California holds the Calavaras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee every third weekend in May. Walking tours are given in New York City of places Twain visited near his birthday every year.

WRITINGS
 * (1867) Advice for Little Girls (fiction)
 * (1867) The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (fiction)
 * (1868) General Washington's Negro Body-Servant (fiction)
 * (1868) My Late Senatorial Secretaryship (fiction)
 * (1869) The Innocents Abroad (non-fiction travel)
 * (1870-71) Memoranda (monthly column for The Galaxy magazine)
 * (1871) Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (fiction)
 * (1872) Roughing It (non-fiction)
 * (1873) The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (fiction)
 * (1875) Sketches New and Old (fictional stories)
 * (1876) Old Times on the Mississippi (non-fiction)
 * (1876) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (fiction)
 * (1877) A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime (stories)
 * (1878) Punch, Brothers, Punch! and other Sketches (fictional stories)
 * (1880) A Tramp Abroad (non-fiction travel)
 * (1880) 1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors (fiction)
 * (1882) The Prince and the Pauper (fiction)
 * (1883) Life on the Mississippi (non-fiction)
 * (1884) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (fiction)
 * (1889) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (fiction)
 * (1892) The American Claimant (fiction)
 * (1892) Merry Tales (fictional stories)
 * (1893) The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories (fictional stories)
 * (1894) Tom Sawyer Abroad (fiction)
 * (1894) Pudd'n'head Wilson (fiction)
 * (1896) Tom Sawyer, Detective (fiction)
 * (1896) Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (fiction)
 * (1897) How to Tell a Story and other Essays (non-fictional essays)
 * (1897) Following the Equator (non-fiction travel)
 * (1900) The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (fiction)
 * (1901) Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany (political satire)
 * (1902) A Double Barrelled Detective Story (fiction)
 * (1904) A Dog's Tale (fiction)
 * (1905) King Leopold's Soliloquy (political satire)
 * (1905) The War Prayer (fiction)
 * (1906) The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (fiction)
 * (1906) What Is Man? (essay)
 * (1907) Christian Science (non-fiction)
 * (1907) A Horse's Tale (fiction)
 * (1907) Is Shakespeare Dead? (non-fiction)
 * (1909) Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (fiction)
 * (1909) Letters from the Earth (fiction, published posthumously)
 * (1910) Queen Victoria's Jubilee (non-fiction, published posthumously)
 * (1924) Mark Twain's Autobiography (non-fiction, published posthumously)
 * (1935) Mark Twain's Notebook (published posthumously)