A glance at Mark Twain’s life

• Twain’s origin and occupations:

Mark Twain was the renowned and celebrated American writer. Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was born in 1835. He was raised in Hannibal, Missouri.. Clemens held a variety of odd jobs as a young man. He was a journalist, novelist, lectuter, travel writer, miner, printer’s apprentice, typesetter, and licensed riverboat pilot but journalism was what he liked doing best. His writing style earned him praise from critics worldwide.

• Why Twain is so famous?

He is famous because of his comic works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Prince and the pauper. The main character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is based on his own childhood experiences and friendships. Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, rose to the top of bestseller lists in 1876 and has remained one of the most popular books ever published in the United States. His finnest work is The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, the story of a journey down the Mississippi by two persons, white boy and black slave. Huckleberry Finn, main character of his work was also based on a childhood friend.

• Reason behind satirical writings:

In the 1890s, Twain suffered a series of miseries, for example, deaths of his wife and two daughters and financial losses due to failed investments due to which he had a darker side. His last writings are savage and pessimistic. His most severe criticism, expressed in The War prayer and The Letters From the Earth, was published after his death. In his book, Letters From the Earth, he has discussed man's cruel, callous and combative nature. Because of man's actions he calls him worst of all creations.

• Twain's demise:

Most of his writing was taken from his life in the western part of the United States while traveling with his brother Orion. He was born Christian, but afterwards his belief shattered and he developed negative feelings toward religion. He was once quoted as saying, "If Christ were here, now there is one thing he would not be - Christian." Twain died in 1910 from a heart attack at the age of seventy five in Redding, Connecticut. That same week, Halley’s comet appears. Twain always believed that the appearance of the comet would mark his death as it did his birth.