Mark Twain Research Paper

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started”. This quote by mark twain is a sign of his hard work he put in his lifetime he never slacked.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens also knows as Mark Twain was born in 1835 and died in 1910 (Student Handbook 379). He is mostly known as an American humorist and for his realistic view of America in the nineteenth century through his novels and other stories. He had the whole world captivated by his expert writing and lectures. "I never let my schooling interfere with my education," Mark Twain once said. Mark Twain was a great inspiration to America in the nineteenth century and is still an inspiration to contemporary writers today.

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the small town of Florida,

He and his family moved into an expensive mansion in Hartford and he was slowly gaining a larger and larger fortune. He earned money by giving lectures worldwide and writing books. In the early 1880's he founded and ran his own publishing firm. Ironically though, he lost almost all of his money through a series of very unfortunate events. During the time of the foundation of his publishing firm, he became very interested in a variety of investments. One of his main investments was a very modern and elaborate typesetting machine. The new machine belly-flopped and he lost almost $200,000 in investments between 1881 and 1894. Also, incredibly, in April of 1894, his publishing company declared bankruptcy. Thus, in January of 1895, he found himself publicly humiliated due to the fact that he could not pay off his debts (World Book 531). Twain was at a loss, the only thing he could do would be to try his best to regain the fortune he had once acquired. If anyone could do it, Mark Twain would be that

His later works, like "The Mysterious Stranger", although not accepted back in the early twentieth century, have now received much more attention as the general public is getting to know Twain's pessimistic side. "Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved" (home.eathlink.net/à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦/twain.html) Mark Twain once wrote. The deeper meaning of this statement simply states that one should be happy to leave this cruel world and sad for someone who is entering it. One reason for his change of personality in his writings was because of the deaths in his family. His dark side is also represented in his words again, "Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for last realities- Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty,". This gloomy side of Twain is important to his literary history but is not the prominent factor in the remembrance of him. He will always be remembered as Mark Twain, "The American