Mark Twain

MARK TWAIN (1835 - 1910) Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorn Clemens. The name Mark Twain originates from his time as a pilot on the Mississippi. Twain means 'two', and the second mark - mark twain - on the leadline showed the pilot that the river was two fathoms, or 3.6 metres, deep. He also worked as a printer, a gold digger and a journalist, and he stayed for some time in Europe. From 1867 he was a full time writer. He was born and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the Mississippi. " The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" was published in 1876 and is a description of his own boyhood in the 1830s and 40s, though Tom is not Mark Twain himself, but a combination of 3 boys he knew. In 1884 appeared "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", in which Huck goes to live on an island in the Mississippi and goes down the river on a raft. Both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are books for boys and girls, but in Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain deals also with social problems such as slavery. Mark Twain was a good story-teller, and he had many adventures and stories to tell. He wrote many short stories, and his humor and his pictures of people and places still fascinate old and young readers.