Mark TwainMark Twain

1835-19101835-1910

• 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 printer’s apprentice to help support his family.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.