Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called „the Great American Novel.“
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion‘s newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, „The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County“, which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
Twain was born during a visit by Halley‘s Comet, and he predicted that he would „go out with it“ as well. He died the day following the comet‘s subsequent return. He was lauded as the „greatest American humorist of his age,“ and William Faulkner called Twain „the father of American literature.“
Mark Twain iPad Books:
The Gilded Age : A Tale of Today / Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner [1873]
Sketches New and Old (stories) [1875]
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [1876]
The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut [1877]
The Prince and the Pauper [1882]
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [1884]
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court [1889]
The American Claimant [1892]
Those Extraordinary Twins [1892]
Tom Sawyer Abroad [1894]
The Tragedy of Puddnhead Wilson [1894]
Tom Sawyer, Detective [1896]
A Double Barrelled Detective Story [1902]
A Dogs Tale [1904]
The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories [1906]
A Horses Tale [1907]
What is Man? and other essays [1906]
-What is Man?
-The Death of Jean
-The Turning-Point of My Life
-How to Make History Dates Stick
-The Memorable Assassination
-A Scrap of Curious History
-Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty
-At the Shrine of St. Wagner
-William Dean Howells
-English as she is Taught
-A Simplified Alphabet
-As Concerns Interpreting the Deity
-Concerning Tobacco
-The Bee
-Taming the Bicycle
Is Shakespeare Dead? [1909]