Samuel Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, and later assumed the penname of Mark Twain as a young author. His parents were John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens. He was the 6th of 7 children, however only 2 survived child hood, his brother Orion and sister Pamela.
When Twain was 4 years old, his family moved to Hannibal,Missouri, a town right off of the Mississippi River. His time in Hannibal was the inspiration for the town he would later right about in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Also during his time here, he became very familiar with slavery, a theme that he would use throughout many of his books.
Unfortunately in 1847, when Twain was only 11 years old, his father died of Pneumonia. He then got his first job as a printer’s apprentice, and also began working for the Hannibal Journal. Twain traveled a great deal, and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. At 22, he also pursued a career as a steamboat pilot which was a very wealthy profession at the time.
During the time of the Civil War, instead of joining the militia, Twain joined his brother, Orion, who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada. Twain and his brother traveled throughout the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Twain also traveled abroad on many occasions for pleasure and for business. The experiences that Twain took from all of his adventures became the basis of several of his later works.
During one of his expeditions in Europe, he met a man names Charles Langdon; and after seeing a picture of his sister Olivia, Twain fell madly in love. Before anyone knew it they were engaged and married in February, 1870 in Elmira, New York. Olivia gave birth to a son, Langdon, unfortunately he died of diphtheria after only 19 months. In 1871, Twain and his wife moved to Hartford Connecticut, where Olivia gave birth to 3 daughters: Susy, Clara, and Jean. Mark Twain and his wife were married for 34 years until the ill-fated Olivia died in 1904. During this time in Twain’s life he was plagued with bouts of depression, namely because of the death of his wife and the fact that he outlived his 2 daughters, Jean and Susy.
Before his death in 1910, Twain was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut of angina pectoris.
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Born Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain went through many different pen names before finally settling on his legendary, “Mark Twainâ€. He signed many of his first humorous sketches “Josh†until 1863. He also used the name “Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass†for many of his humorous letters. However, Twain’s most famous name “Mark Twain†originally came from his years of working on the Mississippi riverboats, where they would say fully “by the mark twainâ€. “By the mark twain†actually means “according to the mark (on the line), (the depth is) two fathomsâ€.
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Fun fact : The year Mark Twain was born, Halley's Comet passed over in the sky. Twain declared that he would not die until he saw the famous comet again. Then, just before he died Halley's Comet passed over. He died the next day; April 21st, 1910.
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