Mark Twain:
Twain:
Universally Revered American
Author
By Ashley A.
Age 17
Table of Contents
Research Section………………… ……………….1-5
Recipe……………………………………………. .1
Top Ten List……………………………………….3
Letter…………………………………………….4
Photos with Captions……………………………. .6-9
Summary of Genres………………………………. .10
Works Cited………………………………………11
A man lounges comfortably in bed, his wild white hair sticking out in all directions. He clutches a pen in
one hand and grips paper in the other as he scribbles down ideas for a new book. Even though he knows
reporters are constantly coming to call, this does not seem to bother him. When they arrive, he simply
tells the butler to show them in, where the reporters interview him still lounging in his bed. This man is
famous American author Mark Twain, whose favorite place to write was in his own bed (Ward 195).
Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, has been called “the most universally revered American
writer” (Ward). He had many different quirks to his personality, but these characteristics caused him to
become known as “the funniest man on earth” in his day (Ward viii). He was also a “tireless wanderer,”
seeing many different places in his lifetime that he later used as settings for his numerous books (Ward
viii). But behind the humor of his various works was a serious tone. Twain was an eccentric, troubled
man who displayed a certain disdain for the human condition, which is evidenced in the satire of his
writings.
Mark Twain’s childhood provided him with many ideas for his books later in life. He was born the sixth
child of John and Jane Clemens, on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, with Halley’s Comet
blazing bright in the sky. His parents named him Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Ward 3). However, he
was born two months premature and was on allopathic medicines for the first seven years of his life,
causing his mother to always be a little uneasy about his health (Twain 11). But his health wasn’t his
parents’ only worry. Sam’s father moved the family many times during the first few years of Sam’s life,
trying to find a prosperous settlement for the large Clemens
family.They finally resided in Hannibal, Mississippi
in 1839, when Sam was four. The future looked
Recipe for a Crazy Adventure
bright to Sam’s father, but unfortunately he
borrowed money for a business venture. It did not
work out,and he got into debt. Sam’s oldest brother,
• 2 cups of wild imagination
Orion,was then pulled from school and sent to
• A few dashes of high spirit
St. Louis to learn the printer’s trade. But despite
• 1 catcall
these difficulties, Sam still saw Hannibal as a
• 1 Mississippi River
“boy’s paradise” (Ward 4). He and his young
friends would play in the forests nearby, using their
• 1 worried Mother
wild imaginations to pretend they were Indians,
Robin Hood, or treasure hunters. His boyhood
Directions:
best friend was Tom Blakenship, the son of the
1. Grease two best friends with
town drunkard, and he would always go on
wild imagination.
crazy night adventures with Sam. This friendship
became the basis for the relationship between
2. Toss in a few dashes of high spirit.
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in Twain’s
3. Whip in a secret catcall to cue late
later book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In this
night meetings.
book, Twain uses satire to show how legalistic
4. Stir all of this together, creating mischief.
people can be and the injustice of certain prejudices.
5. Pour this into one Mississippi River.
During his boyhood, Sam also spent lots of time at
6. Place in the two boys to marinate.
his Uncle John Quarles’ farm, where he befriended
many black slaves. Many years later, Twain said,
7. Retrieve them after they have reached a
“The black face is as welcome to me now as it was
“substantially drowned condition.”
then.” He used some of these black friends from
8. Wrap the two boys in with
his uncle’s farm as the basis for characters in his
one worried mother.
book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where
he satirizes racism and human cruelty (Ward 4-11).
Sam’s involvement in writing began very early in life when, sadly, in 1847, Sam’s father caught
pneumonia and died. Orion was already sending money home from St. Louis, but now 11-year-old Sam
had to start taking odd jobs after school. For the first three years he worked after school and in the
summer simply as an errand boy, grocery clerk, and apprentice to a blacksmith. However, he
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eventually had to pull from school as well. It was then that he took a job at the Missouri Courier as a
printer’s apprentice, like his older brother had. There he was given emolument of board and clothing,
but not money (Ward 12). In 1850, he left the Missouri Courier for the Hannibal Journal, now owned by
Orion. Here was where Sam truly discovered that he loved to write. Wanting to make the paper lively,
he began writing rough, humorous sketches under pseudonym W. Epaminodas Adrastus Blab. He
particularly liked to write things that poked fun at the town’s leading citizens, especially those that were
high strung. In 1853, after a few years with the Hannibal Journal, 17-year-old Sam finally decided to
leave Hannibal. Feeling the need to “move – move – MOVE!” he set out to see the world (Ward 13). He
began in St. Louis, setting type for the Evening News, then went all the way to New York where he
worked in a print shop. Pretty soon he had moved yet again, this time to Philadelphia where he gained a
reputation as a “swift and accurate” typesetter for the Inquirer (Ward 14). In the spring of 1854, Sam
moved yet again. Tired of the east, he moved out west where he tried to work in a print shop that Orion
had just opened. However, this did not work out and Sam began a series of traveling letters for the
Keokuk Post, under the pseudonym Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass. This was his first paying job as a
writer.
In 1857, Sam’s life began to take a new direction that would affect both him as a person and his writings.
He boarded a steamboat in hopes of heading to Brazil, but these plans soon changed as he began to think
about an old dream of his: to become a steamboat pilot. After some persuasion, the pilot of the
steamboat took him on as a cub pilot, and Sam proceeded to learn the intricacies of piloting a riverboat.
The next year, his brother Henry was in need of a job, and Sam persuaded him to come aboard the
Pennsylvania with him as the clerk. However, not long after Henry came aboard, Sam got into a fight
with the pilot and was transferred to another boat, leaving Henry to continue on the Pennsylvania
without him. A couple days later, the boilers of the Pennsylvania mysteriously exploded, and Henry died
not long after (Ward 17-19). Sam was greatly affected and blamed himself personally, feeling that he
had been the one to “lure” Henry out onto the steamboat (Ward 20). Sam still continued piloting though,
even getting his pilot’s license in 1859. He later said, “I loved that profession far better than any I have
followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it,” and he used his experiences to write the memoir
Life on the Mississippi (Ward 26). However, only a couple years after receiving his license, all traffic on
the Mississippi came to a standstill. It was 1861, and the Civil War had begun. Sam returned to
Hannibal where he and some boyhood friends formed a small Confederate Militia, but they soon
disbanded, and Sam instead went out west with Orion. This time he had dreams of mining (Ward 27).
He stuck with it for six months, but eventually “could not endure the heavy labor” (Ward 36).
Fortuitously, he was later able to use this experience for his book Roughing It, in which he satirizes the
human nature of greed. His try at mining also brought about the job that initially helped to launch his
career. He sent some short stories of his mining experiences to Nevada’s most successful newspaper, the
Territorial Enterprise. They offered him a full-time job as a reporter; he quit mining and threw himself
into this new job. He absolutely loved it, and wrote columns poking fun at politicians and rival reporters.
Presently, Sam was encouraged in his writings by popular American humorist Artemus Ward. Also,
Sam’s salary was soon doubled, and he confidently said, “I am prone to boast of having the widest
reputation as a local editor, of any man on the Pacific coast” (Ward 40). Now that his career was
beginning to take off, Sam decided to try out a new pseudonym. He had had many over the years, but
this new one would stick with him for the rest of his life – Mark Twain. By the next year, 1864, his
articles were beginning to appear regularly in California and even occasionally in the east. His old
friends were soon calling him Mark instead of Sam. However, in May, Twain had to leave his job at the
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Territorial Enterprise due to a feud with a rival newspaperman that had become life-threatening (Ward
40-41). In 1866, Twain traveled to Honolulu, where he sent back reports for the Sacramento Union.
These reports were a hit in California, and they quickly made Twain a household name. Once he
returned to San Francisco, a friend suggested that he go into the lecture business. After some initial
reluctance, Twain had his first performance on October 2, 1886 (Ward 54). He was now a performer as
well as a writer, for he quickly “established his reputation as an eccentric lecturer” (Ward 55). His first
book was published the next year on May 1, 1867 – The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,
and Other Sketches. In this humorous story, Twain satirizes the differences between a western hick and
an “educated” easterner. In the end, the “educated” one ends up looking the more ridiculous of the two.
About a month after this first publication, Twain boarded the steamship Quaker City on its way to
Europe. This trip prompted him to begin writing another book, The Innocents Abroad. In this book,
Twain gives full critiques of culture and society, ranging from witty and comedic to bitter and critical.
One of Twain’s eccentricities was his determination
to the point of obsession. On his Quaker City trip,
he met a man named Charles Langdon, who later
Top Ten List of Things
invited Twain to stay with him and his family for a
Satirized by Mark Twain
few days. Here, Twain met Olivia Lewis Langdon,
or Livy, who captivated him. In a letter to his
10. Hypocrites
5. Arrogance
mother, Twain declared Livy “the best girl in
4. Greed
9. Religion
the world, & the most sensible” (Twain 73).
8. Social Statuses
3. Legalism
Within only a few days of meeting, Twain told
7. Romanticism
2. Modern
Livy he wanted to marry her. Understandably, s
6. Politics
Society
he declined, but she gave him permission to
1.
Racism
write letters if they acted as brother and sister.
He began writing the very next day, the first in
a grand total of 184 love letters. Both his humor and his
determination appeared in the very first letter: “My honored
‘sister’ – I do not regret that I have loved you, still love you & shall always
love you… Give me a little room in that great heart of yours – only the little that you have promised me
– & if I fail to deserve it may I remain forever the homeless vagabond that I am!” (Ward 74). He told a
friend that he would “harass that girl and harass her, till she’ll HAVE to say yes!” (Ward 75). Twain got
his wish after a couple more rejections, but not before Livy claimed that she would reform Twain,
believing him to be malleable. During their engagement, Livy helped to edit his book The Innocents
Abroad, becoming his “faithful, judicious, and painstaking editor from that day forth” (Ward 78). The
book was published in July of 1869. The two finally married on February 2, 1870 in the Langdon’s
family parlor (Ward 77-76). Within the year, Livy was pregnant with their first child, and Langdon was
born on November 7, 1870 – premature as Twain had been. He weighed only 4 ½ pounds and was
always sickly (Ward 82). Their daughter Susy was born March 19, 1872, a healthy baby. Tragically, just
nine weeks after the birth of his sister, Langdon died of diphtheria. Sam blamed himself just as he had
with his brother Henry – he always seemed to see himself as the center of things (Ward 86-87). He and
Livy found comfort in the birth of their new baby, though, and eventually had two more children:
Clara, born June 8, 1874, and Jean, born July 26, 1880 (Ward 96,102).
During this time, Twain was writing his books The Gilded Age, published in 1876; The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer, 1876; and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885. The Gilded Age was “a satire on
widespread political corruption” (Ziff 60). The characters of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
were mainly based off of Twain’s real boyhood friends and experiences. Twain later had this to say
about his books: “When pretending to portray life, I confine myself to life with which I am familiar”
(Ward 147). Tom’s tattletale brother Sid in Tom Sawyer was based off of Twain’s own brother Henry,
and troublemaker Tom was based after Twain himself. The sibling rivalry in the book is fairly factual,
as it portrays real instances between Twain and Henry (Ward 33-34). In Huckleberry Finn, certain
3
characters are thought to be based after black slaves that Twain befriended as a boy on his uncle’s
farm, and he illustrates the failure of reconstruction in the post-Civil War South (The Mark Twain
House and Museum). Between the publications of these two books, Twain also wrote The Prince and the
Pauper, where he satirizes the differences between two boys who are identical except for their wealth
and status, and Life on the Mississippi, a memoir about his days on the river (Ward 117-118). Much
later, Twain wrote Following the Equator, based on his tour of many different countries in the course of
about a year. In places such as India, Australia, and Africa, he witnessed mistreatment of the natives,
much like that of the slaves when he was a boy. He became ashamed of his own pernicious race, which
he illustrates in the book: “There are many humorous things in this world; among them the white
man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages” (Ward 174).
*A Letter to the Editor of Life Magazine
from Mark Twain
April 15, 1885
Dear Editor:
I see that my latest book, Huckleberry Finn,
Finn, is meeting quite a lot of controversy.
Your magazine called it “blood curdling humor.” However,
However, I was fully aware of
how challenging the book would be. And honestly, who could better present
racism than a Southerner like myself? Certainly not a Northerner. They wouldn’t
know about the issue firsthand. My own family had a slave when I was a boy.
Back then I was simply unaware that there was anything wrong with it. But as
I grew I began to see the injustice of it. Blacks are no different than anyone else.
They are people. Their feelings are just the same. I befriended many blacks as a
boy on my uncle’s
uncle’s farm, and their faces are just as welcome to me now as they
were back then. My book’s purpose is to compel the reader’s to really think about
the issue. People may call it too graphic or rough, but it is a realistic depiction. I
wouldn’t change a thing
thing about it. It seems the conscience can be trained to
approve of any wild thing… My hope is that Huck Finn will expose racism for
what it is, and just maybe the conscience can be retrained.
-
Mark Twain
*This is my Critical Evaluation
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In approximately the last twenty years of his life, Twain’s troubled side became more evident. Soon
after returning to home from his tour in August of 1896, the first of many catastrophes happened. Twain
and his family, now living in Europe, received a wire from Hartford where Susy had been visiting. She
had fallen gravely ill, and her recovery would be long and slow. Then suddenly, on August 18, Susy was
dead, the doctors diagnosing it as spinal meningitis. Twain was devastated that he had lost his beloved
Susy. He had sudden outbursts of bitterness over it, though these were not an entirely new thing.
Twain’s daughters remembered him as always having serious mood swings, playful and fun with them
one minute, angry and upset the next (Ward 176-177). Things began to slowly get worse for Twain when
young, delicate Jean began having seizures. Clara, on the other hand, had become determined to pursue
a career in music. Defying her parents’ wishes, she left them and went overseas. All of this was just too
much for Livy, and she was struck by a heart attack (Ward 207). The doctors would not allow erratic
Twain nor seizure prone Jean to see Livy, as it might upset her further, and Clara was forced to return
home as her mother’s caretaker (Ward 208). After a while, Clara had an outburst of ire towards her
parents – yelling, screaming, breaking things – and Livy then suffered another heart attack. Although
appearing to make some progress after this, Livy suddenly died on June 5, 1904. Twain was absolutely
heartbroken. Clara, so like her father, personally blamed herself, believing that her intemperance had
caused the heart attack (Ward 217-218). Jean’s seizures then began to get even worse, and on Christmas
of 1908 she suffered a heart attack due to a seizure and died (Twain 371). Twain was then left with only
Clara, which had always been a very tumultuous relationship – both of them were stubborn, and Twain
was sometimes quite bizarre in his parenting. During this time, Twain was also suffering from Angina,
and his health slowly began to decline. Finally, on April 21, 1910, he died with Halley’s Comet once
again blazing across the sky (Ward 254).
Through his books, Twain displayed his thoughts with brutal honesty masked by a unique facetious
quality. Even from a young age he was writing in a way that exposed certain aspects of society for what
they really were: unjust, hypocritical, or legalistic. He was quite an eccentric man, doing whatever he
wanted in his own way. This eccentric side also made him almost unable to stay put, always moving and
trying out new places and jobs. This allowed him to speak confidently in his books – as he himself had
experienced so many things firsthand – and most of his characters and settings were based off of real
people and places he knew. Twain left behind many great writings, including 28 books, and is still quite
popular today. His ability to interchange humor with serious issues made him, however eccentric, a true
genius.
5
Mark Twain
being
interviewed
while
relaxing in
his own bed.
Original copies of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
6
Illustrations by Norman Rockwell of some of Tom Sawyer’s mischievous antics – Tom’s
first time smoking a pipe with his best friend Huck, and Tom prompted to sneak out at
night by Huck’s catcall (just like Twain’s own boyhood best friend used to do).
Twain with his
friend John T.
Lewis. Lewis is
thought to have
been the basis for
the character of Jim
– a runaway slave
that befriends Huck
– in The
Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn.
7
Samuel Clemens
not long after he
first left home for
St. Louis. He
wanted to explore
the world.
Twain’s wife
Livy with
their three
girls: Susy,
Clara, and
Jean.
8
Twain with his daughter Clara. He was always somewhat extreme in his parenting, quite
over protective even when his children were adults. Once when Clara was wearing a hat
decorated with flowers, Twain noticed several men staring at her. Furiously, he marched her
home and cut off all the decorations.
A cartoon of
“America’s Best
Humorist” giving a
lecture. Twain had
become more
famous than any
American author
had before.
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Summary of Genres
In addition to my expository research section, I have written four additional genres that
creatively mix fact with fiction. Each additional genre contains at least two new pieces of
factual information that are not in the expository research section. Below is a summary of
the additional genres, explaining what is factual and what is fictional:
Recipe: This genre is mostly factual. Young Twain often went on crazy adventures with
his boyhood best friend. Twain’s friend would signal him with a catcall, and the two would
slip away together for wild adventures. They spent much of their time swimming in the
Mississippi River. The new information is that, often, they would return in what Twain
later called a “substantially drowned condition” from the amount of time they spent in the
river, and that Twain’s mother was always quite worried by this (Ward 6). However, the use
of the recipe was of my own creativity.
Top Ten List: This genre is entirely factual. Twain satirized many things, and I have created
a list of some of the top ones. The new information is that he satirized religion and
romanticism (Ziff 66).
Letter: Many parts of this letter are true. Twain did intend for his book, Huckleberry Finn,
to cause people to think about the issue of racism and its horrors. The new information is
that Life Magazine called Twain’s book “blood curdling humor” (Ward 122), and that
Twain’s family actually had a slave when he was a boy (Ward 11). However, I do not know
if Twain ever wrote such a letter defending his book.
Photos with Captions: All information in this genre is factual. The new information is that
Twain used the catcall from his childhood in his books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
(Ward 6), and that he based the character of Jim in Huckleberry Finn on his friend John T.
Lewis (Ward 130). Twain also did get angry at the attention that Clara was getting from a
few men and impulsively cut off the decorations on her hat (Ward 218).
10
Works Cited
“Mark Twain: the Man.” The Mark Twain House and Museum. 15 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/biography.php>.
“Twain’s Life and Works.” Marktwainmuseum.org. 2011. 15 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.marktwainmuseum.org/index.php/research/twains-life-and-works>.
Twain, Mark. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. New York: Harper, 1917.
Ward, Geoffrey C., Dayton Duncan, and Ken Burns. Mark Twain. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2001.
Ziff, Larzer. Mark Twain. Oxford University Press, 2004.
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