Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November 30, 1835, in a small village in the state of Missouri, United States. When he was four years old, the Clemens family moved to another small town, Hannibal, located on the banks of the Mississippi River, where Twain spent his childhood. This town and the river would later become central elements in many of his literary works.

After losing his father at the age of twelve, Twain was forced to leave school. He began working as a typesetter’s apprentice at a printing house and later worked at his brother’s local newspaper, the Hannibal Journal. During this period, he also wrote humorous pieces for the same newspaper and for the Boston-based humor magazine The Carpet-Bag. At the age of eighteen, he left home in search of adventure.

Between 1859 and the outbreak of the American Civil War, Twain worked as a riverboat pilot and captain on the Mississippi River. When the Civil War began, he briefly joined the army but left after only fourteen days of training. He then went to Nevada to live with his brother Orion Clemens, who had become a territorial governor.

Hoping to become wealthy, Twain searched for gold in the Nevada mountains but failed. Turning to journalism, he began working as a newspaper reporter. In 1863, he first used the pen name Mark Twain in a humorous travel article. The name comes from a nautical term meaning “two fathoms deep,” used by riverboat pilots to measure water depth.

In 1867, Twain published his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. He was also among the first writers to purchase a typewriter and is often referred to as the first novelist to write using one.

In 1866, Twain traveled to Hawaii as a correspondent and sent reports back to American newspapers. Two years later, he joined a ship tour of the Mediterranean and compiled his travel writings into the book The Innocents Abroad, which brought him widespread fame as a humor writer. In 1878, he traveled through Europe and the Middle East, including a visit to Istanbul, while working on another travel book.

During the 1880s, Twain invested heavily in a typesetting machine, but the venture failed, and his publishing company went bankrupt in 1894. He repaid his debts through book sales and extensive lecture tours around the world. Until his return to the United States in 1900, he lived with his family in Switzerland, Austria, and England.

After returning to the United States, Twain’s wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, suffered from declining health. On medical advice, they traveled to Italy, but she died in Florence in 1904. Twain continued writing and lecturing despite personal losses.

In his works, Twain emphasized the joy of laughter and strongly criticized slavery and social injustice. Writing under the name Mark Twain, he published more than thirty books.

His most important works include Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The latter is considered his masterpiece and a classic of world literature. Ernest Hemingway famously stated that all modern American literature comes from this novel. The story follows the friendship between a free-spirited boy, Huckleberry Finn, and an enslaved boy named Jim, as they journey along the Mississippi River.

In 1870, Twain married Olivia Langdon in New York. The couple lived for a time in Buffalo, where Twain worked as an editor and writer. They had four children, though their first child died at nineteen months from diphtheria. In 1872, the family settled in Hartford, Connecticut.

Mark Twain began writing his autobiography in 1906 but was unable to complete it. He died of heart disease on April 21, 1910, at the age of seventy-five, in Redding, California.

Selected Works

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The Innocents Abroad
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Tramp Abroad
The Prince and the Pauper
Life on the Mississippi
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Following the Equator
Eve’s Diary

Source: Biyografiler.com