Mark Twain

I

Introduction

Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twain’s writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and condemnation of hypocrisy and oppression.

II

Early Years

Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, and moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a port on the Mississippi River, when he was four years old. There he received a public school education and spent his childhood in contact with the people who made their living from the river. After the death of his father in 1847, Clemens was apprenticed to two Hannibal printers, and in 1851 he began setting type for and contributing sketches to his brother Orion’s Hannibal Journal. Subsequently he worked as a printer in Keokuk, Iowa; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and other cities.

In 1857 Clemens set out for New Orleans by riverboat, with the intention of going on to South America in search of adventure. Talks with the boat’s pilot, however, revived Clemens’s boyhood dream of “learning the river,” and he was taken on as an apprentice. He received his license as a pilot in 1859 and worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War (1861-1865) brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in the Confederate cavalry. Later that year he accompanied Orion to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining.

III

Becoming Mark Twain

For almost a year Clemens worked as a prospector in Nevada, but without much success. During that year he began contributing humorous sketches to the Territorial Enterprise, a newspaper published in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1862 he became a reporter for the paper. Seeking a good pen name, he chose Mark Twain, a Mississippi riverboat phrase called out to test the water’s depth; “twain,” or two fathoms (12 feet) deep, meant it was safe for navigating. In May 1864, a quarrel with a rival journalist, whom he challenged to a duel, forced Twain to flee to San Francisco, California. For the next two years he worked for various California papers. During this time he met American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work.

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In 1865 Twain reworked a tale he had heard in the California gold fields, and within months the author and the story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” had become national sensations. The story, which was published in several newspapers, is a typical example of the tall tale, or exaggerated tale of the frontier, which was the basis of much of Twain’s humor.

Early in 1866 the Sacramento Union commissioned Twain to do a series of letters about Hawaii. Their popularity encouraged him to try a humorous lecture based on his experiences. Its enormous success marked the beginning of his career as an internationally famous and popular humorous lecturer. As a result of his Hawaiian triumph, Twain was commissioned by a San Francisco newspaper to supply a weekly newsletter on New York City. After his arrival in New York City he saw an announcement for a Mediterranean cruise and persuaded the newspaper to send him on it.

Twain wrote of his cruise to Europe and Palestine in The Innocents Abroad (1869), a highly successful travel book that is a delightful combination of humor and shrewd observation. The Innocents Abroad shows Twain at his irreverent best, debunking the awestruck and uncritical admiration of many Americans for European civilization. Besides supplying the material for the book, the cruise brought him the friendship of Charles Langdon, whose sister Olivia married Twain in 1870.

IV

Settling in Hartford

With help from Jervis Langdon, his prosperous father-in-law, Twain bought an interest in the Buffalo, New York Express, intending to make journalism his career. The venture proved unhappy. Jervis Langdon died of cancer, and the Twains’ son, Langdon, died in infancy. In 1871 the couple moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where their three daughters were born: Suzy in 1872, Clara in 1874, and Jean in 1880. Much of Twain’s best work was written in the 1870s and 1880s in Hartford or during the summers at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, New York.

After publishing Roughing It (1872), an account of his early adventures as a miner and journalist, Twain wrote his first novel, The Gilded Age (1873), in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. Although not entirely successful, the book nevertheless contains some sharp and revealing insights about American political life in the 1870s. That period in United States history has often been called the Gilded Age in recognition of the novel’s accurate representation of a time of greed, wealth, and corruption.

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