Weekend Writing: Celebrating Mark Twain

He was born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but everyone would know him best as Mark Twain. Referred to as the "greatest humorist this country has produced," American author William Faulkner credited him as "the father of American literature."

I'm celebrating Twain on the blog today because he was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. The sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens, he was born two months prematurely and was in poor health for the first 10 years of his life. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

Twain's father, who worked as an attorney and judge, died of pneumonia when Twain was just 11 years old. A year later, Twain dropped out of school to work as a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he started working as a typesetter for the Hannibal Journal. 

When he was 18, he left Hannibal to work as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Because he dropped out of elementary school, he educated himself in public libraries. He found it more beneficial than attending school. He eventually found work as a cub pilot on a steamboat, traveling from New Orleans to St. Louis. Twain learned everything about the Mississippi River until the Civil War, when Northern forces clashed with those of the South over slavery and secession.

Young Mark Twain (photo/Book Riot).

In 1861, Twain traveled to Nevada Territory, where he invested carelessly in timber and silver mining. His brother, Orion, became secretary to Nevada governor James W. Nye, and the brothers joined forces to travel as much as they could in a new territory they never imagined ever visiting. It was during this time when Twain adopted his pen name.

In 1865, Twain wrote a short story, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." This brought him national attention. Shortly after, the Sacramento Union commissioned him to travel to Hawaii in order to report on the new excursion services. His travel accounts were so well received that he was contracted in 1866 to become a travel correspondent for the Alta California. Twain traveled the world. On a trip from Europe to the Middle East, he met a fellow passenger, Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister, Olivia. Twain remarked he fell in love with her "at first sight."

Twain corresponded with Olivia throughout his travels. When he returned to the U.S., the couple married in February 1870. She came from a wealthy, liberal family and through their marriage, Twain met many abolitionists, including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass. The couple lived in Buffalo, New York until moving to Hartford, Connecticut, where they lived for 20 years. The couple had four children: Langdon, Susy, Clara, and Jean.

Mark Twain and his wife, Olivia (photo/Connecticut Explained).

This is the period where Twain wrote his family novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Twain's novels were popular with both young and old fans.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a narrative of innocent boyhood play that accidentally discovers evil as Tom and Huck witness a murder by Injun Joe in a graveyard at midnight. The boys run away, are assumed dead, but turn up at their own funeral. Tom and Huck decide to seek out the murderer. In the end, it is innocent play and boyish adventure which really triumph.

Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (photo/Amazon.com).

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered Twain's best work. Huck is a simple boy with very little education. The novel is a series of adventures, and it's viewed as the story of a quest for freedom and an escape from what society requires in exchange for success. It's definitely a classic and American novelist Ernest Hemingway once said that all American literature begins with Huck Finn. 

Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (photo/Amazon.com).

Twain earned a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal of his fortune through investments. He invested in new inventions and technology, publishing houses, etc. He traveled to Europe to hopefully be more successful, but these business ventures also failed. He returned to the U.S. in 1900 and he continued writing.

His later writings were more bitter, especially after Olivia died in 1905. Twain entered a period of deep depression that many people say he never recovered from in his later years. He wrote The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, which exposed corruption in a small, typical American town. In 1906, he began working on an autobiography. Portions of the autobiography were published in periodicals. With the income, he built a large house in Redding, Connecticut, which he named Stormfield. His health declined and he died on April 21, 1910. He was 74 years old.

Mark Twain (photo/Mental Floss)

Mark Twain was truly a unique writer. He was a master of spoken language, slang, and dialect. He will always be remembered first and foremost as a humorist, but he was more than that. He was an entertainer, philosopher, travel writer, and novelist. For many people, he invented the American point of view in fiction, and he is certainly an icon in American literature.

We must always remember him and his writing. Always.

-KJL-