Mark Twain

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Mark Twain

• 1835-1910

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• He was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens and grew up
  in Hannibal, Missouri, a town on the Mississippi
  River.
• When Clemens was around 11 or 12, his father
  died. Clemens left school and began working as a
  printers apprentice to help support his family.

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• At 21, Clemens left the printing business to
  pursue a career as a riverboat pilot. Clemens
  loved the Mississippi River and the riverboats.
• On a riverboat, a leadsman must give the depth of
  the water to the pilot. Mark twain means a
  water depth of 24. Clemens took this as his pen
  name.

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• When the Civil War closed down the Mississippi
  River, Clemens moved to Nevada and worked as a
  journalist and lecturer.
• In 1865, he published The Notorious Jumping Frog
  of Calaveras County and became famous.

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• After publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869,
  Clemens moved to Hartford, Connecticut where he
  lived the rest of his life.
• While in Hartford, Clemens, as Twain, published
  several more books including The Adventures of
  Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  which is considered his masterpiece.