Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) The life and work of the author

Mark Twain was born on the 30 th of November in Hannibal. He was an American writer, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer

Clemens maintained that the alias "Mark Twain" was taken in his youth in terms of river navigation. He was an assistant to the pilot on the Mississippi, and the term "Mark Twain» ("mark two fathoms") called the minimum depth that is suitable for the passage of river vessels.

He spent his childhood in the town of Hannibal on the Missouri River. When his father died, he left school and began working as a typesetter in the local newspapers. From 18 to 22 years of wandering in the country, then he became a pilot on the Mississippi. In 1861, Twain went to the Far West, where he was a prospector in the silver mines of Nevada and prospector in California. At the same time, he tried his hand as a reporter in the newspaper, which published a series of humorous essays and short stories.

In 1865 he went on the boat to Europe and Palestine, sending humorous stories from the road. Widely known in the folk tale Twain story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). Visited France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, the Crimea and the Holy Land, he returned to the United States. In 1869 published a collection of travel essays "The Innocents Abroad", which had a huge success.

In 1872 he published the autobiographical book "Hardened" about the people and customs of the Wild West. Three years later, Twain published a collection of his best short stories - "Old and new essays," then its popularity has increased even more. In 1876 he published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," and because the book was a huge success, in 1885 he published a sequel, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Between these two novels Twain released another autobiography - "Life on the Mississippi" (1883).

Mark Twain's success began to fade gradually in recent years. Until his death in 1910, he suffered the loss of three of the four children who died and beloved wife, Olivia. Income Twain also deteriorated: his publishing company went bankrupt; plagiarists stolen rights to some of his books.

Mark Twain died April 21, A year before his death, he said: "I came in 1835 with Comet Halley, a year later she arrives again, and I expect to get away with it." And so it happened. In the town of Hannibal, Missouri, is a house in which a boy was playing Sam Clemens, and the cave which he explored as a child, and have been described in the famous "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." There is now the tourists come. Mark Twain House turned into his personal museum and declared the US a national treasure.

The biggest contribution Twain in American and world literature is considered the novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Many believe it is generally best literary work ever created in the United States. Also very popular "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" and a collection of documentary essays, "Life on the Mississippi". Children's favorite books