Samuel Clemens came in with Haley’s Comet 1835, and left as Mark Twain, when
Haley’s Comet passed the closest to Earth again in 1910.
Mark Twain was born on 30 November 1835, with the name of Samuel Langhorne
Clemens in Florida, Missouri. His interesting stories featuring Huckleberry Finn and
Tom Sawyer’s adventures on the Mississippi river were inspired by Samuel’s
experiences as a riverboat captain in his youth. He worked on the river in 1859,
until the civil war broke out, burning up steamboats, making it impossible to travel
north or south along the river. He joined the Confederate army briefly until the
Yankees showed up with gunfire, so he escaped west to the Gold Rush. Said he
wasn’t willing to die for either
…show more content…
Must have been found while hiding there.
Finding a dead black man on their fishing island was the inspiration for the story of
Huck Finn helping the runaway slave, Jim.
Samuel’s parents were John and Jane Clemens. Most of his siblings died as
children. He was the sixth of seven children. Sam was very sick most of the time
until age 10. His father died of pneumonia when Sam was 13, so he started working
for a linotype printer. He began working, making up characters and writing stories
as a teenager, similar to Charles Dickens.
Samuel Clemens grew up in Hannibal, Missouri on the Mississippi River. He
worked for his brother, Orion, as a typesetter, and wrote articles for their paper.
Samuel’s best job was as a riverboat captain. He persuaded his younger brother,
Henry, to work on a riverboat called the Pennsylvainia. The boat blew up in the
water while Henry was on board, so he died. Sam blamed himself for his younger
brothers death. His hair turned white in his twenties while he was grief striken over
losing his brother.
Sam Clemens’ first known choice of a pseudonym was on a sketch signed “W.
Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins”, while editing for his brother’s newspaper.
…show more content…
He
showed Sam a photo of his sister Olivia, and within two years they were married.
Livy was always the love of his life. They moved to Buffalo, New York. They had four
children. Langdon died at age two. They moved to Hartford Connecticut, where
Mark Twain did most of his writing.. Susy, also a great writer, making memoirs of
their happy home life, died while her father was away on lecture tour. He brought
Livy to Italy for her health, but she eventually died, leaving him old and lonely.
Mark Twain received an honorary degree from Oxford College in England, though
he was self educated. He wore his Oxford robes to his daughter Clara’s wedding.
His daughter Clara was the only member of his family to outlive him. She erected a
12 foot monument at his grave, symbolizing Mark Twain, two fathoms.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were his most famous
legacies. Huck Finn carries a message of conscious liberation, from the trend of
thinking that slavery was good, to making a point that it was really very bad to own
people and use them cruelly. Abolitionist freedman, Frederick Douglas, became
friends with Mark