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TWAIN, MARK
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See also:TWAIN, See also:MARK , the nom de plume of See also:SAMUEL See also:LANGHORNE CLEMENS (1835-1910), See also:American author, who was See also:born on the 3oth of See also:November 1835, at See also:Florida, See also:Missouri. His See also:father was a See also:country See also:merchant from See also:Tennessee, who moved soon after his son's See also:birth to See also:Hannibal, Missouri, a little See also:town on the See also:Mississippi. When the boy was only twelve his father died, and thereafter he had to get his See also:education as best he could. Of actual schooling he had little. He learned how to set type, and as a journeyman printer he wandered widely, going even as far See also:east as New See also:York. At seventeen he went back to the Mississippi, determined to become a See also:pilot on a See also:river-steamboat. In his See also:Life on the Mississippi he has recorded graphically his experiences while " learning the river." But in 1861 the See also:war See also:broke out, and the pilot's occupation was gone. After a brief See also:period of uncertainty the See also:young See also:man started See also:West with his See also:brother, who had been appointed See also:lieutenant-See also:governor of See also:Nevada. He went to the mines for a See also:season, and there he began to write in the See also:local See also:newspapers, adopting the See also:pen name of " Mark Twain," from a See also:call used in taking soundings on the Mississippi steamboats. He drifted in See also:time to See also:San Francisco, and it was a newspaper of that See also:city which in 1867 supplied the mcney for him to join a party going on a chartered steamboat to the Mediterranean ports. The letters which he wrote during this voyage were gathered in 1869 into a See also:volume, The Innocents Abroad, and the See also:book immediately won a wide and enduring popularity. This popularity was of service to him when he appeared on the See also:platform with a lecture—or rather with an apparently informal talk, See also:rich in admirably delivered See also:anecdote. He edited a daily newspaper in .See also:Buffalo for a few months, and in 187o he married See also:Miss Olivia L. See also:Langdon (d. 1904), removing a See also:year later to See also:Hartford, where he established his See also:home. Roughing It was published in 1872, and in 1874 he collaborated with See also: To be recorded also is a volume of essays and See also:literary criticisms, How to Tell a See also:Story (1897). A See also:complete edition of his See also:works was published in twenty-two volumes in 1899–1900 by the American Publishing See also:Company of Hartford. And in this last year, having paid off all the debts of his old firm, he returned to America. By the time he died his books had brought him a considerable See also:fortune. In later years he published a few See also:minor volumes of fiction, and a See also:series of severe and also amusing criticisms of See also:Christian See also:Science (pub-lished as a book in 1907), and in 1906 he began an autobiography in the See also:North American See also:Review. He had a See also:great reception in England in 1907, when he went over to receive from See also:Oxford the degree of See also:Doctor of Literature. He died at Redding, Connecticut, on the 21st of See also:April 191o. Of his four daughters only one, who married the See also:Russian pianist Gabrilowitch, survived him. Mark Twain was an outstanding figure for many years as a popular American See also:personality in the world of letters. He is commonly considered as a humorist, and no doubt he is a humorist of a remarkable comic force and of a refreshing fertility. But the books in which his See also:humour is broadly displayed, the travels and the sketches, are not really so significant of his See also:power as the three novels of the Mississippi, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson, wherein we have preserved a vanished See also:civilization, peopled with typical figures, and presented with inexorable veracity. There is no lack of humour in them, and there is never a hint of affectation in the See also:writing; indeed, the author, doing spontaneously the See also:work nearest to his See also:hand, was very likely unconscious that he was making a contribution to See also:history. But such Huckleberry Finn is, beyond all question; it is a story of very varied See also:interest, now comic, now almost tragic, frequently poetic, unfailingly truthful, although not always sustained at its highest level. And in these three works of fiction there are not only humour and pathos, See also:character and truth, there is also the largeness of outlook on life such as we find only in the works of the masters. Beneath his fun-making we can discern a man who is fundamentally serious, and whose ethical See also:standards are ever lofty. Like Cervantes at times, Mark Twain reveals a See also:depth of See also:melancholy beneath his playful humour, and like See also:Moliere always, he has a deep scorn and a burning detestation of all sorts of sham and pretence, a scorching hatred of See also:humbug and See also:hypocrisy. Like Cervantes and like Moliere, he is always sincere and See also:direct. After Mark Twain's See also:death, his intimate friend, W. D. See also:Howells, published in Igwo a series of personal recollections in Harper's See also:Magazine. (B. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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