I. Biography
Samual Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835, and died in 1910. Twain's father was John Marshall Clemens, a visionary lawyer and landowner from virginia and his mother was Jane Lampton Clemens. When Clemens was twelve his father passed away. After his fathers death Samual Clemens left school to find work, and boy did he find it. Before his father's death Clemens was apprenticed to his brother Orion, who ran the Missouri Courier, which was a country paper. In 1853 Clemens set out for the East as a journeyman printer. In 1857 he became an apprentice pilot on the Mississippi, and remained on the river, as apprentice and journyman pilot, until the civil war. For about two weeks Clemens served as a second lieutenant in Confederate Army, but he some how managed to get out because of diasabilities. After his short military career Clemens went back to his brother who had been appointed secretary of the territory of Nevada.
The cover of the first edition of Adventures of Hu...
Illustration of Jim and Huckleberry Finn, by EW Ke...
mark twain Category:Mark Twain imagesRealizing that he had no money Clemens tried his hand in prospecting, which he found was not his cup of tea. He then became a reporter, but he was quickly moved up to editor of the Virginia City, Nev., Enterprise, this is when he began using Pseudonym "Mark Twain". In 1864 Twain joined the staff of the Morning Call, which is when he met Bret Harte, the first purely literary figure he had ever known. The next year he wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. After his publishment he was sent around the world by the Sacromento Union. Later in Twains life he faced many inner struggles which probale be viewed as a good thing, but it did inspire some of Twain's best work such as, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and Huckleberry Finn. Twain...