When no less an author than William Faulkner cites you as "the father of American literature," you know you've done something right. And, to be sure, Mark Twain did a lot of things right.
He was an inventor, a fearless traveler, a celebrated lecturer, one of America's foremost humorists, and the teller of some of the most beloved tales ever told. His was a life peppered with tragedy, bouts of depression, and financial turmoil, but it was also full of adventure, strange and unexplainable occurrences, and great friendships, all of which found their way into his unforgettable stories.
In November of 1835, two weeks after Halley's Comet made its closest approach to the Earth, Samuel Langhorne Clemens came into the world. He spent the better part of his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, a port town situated on the Mississippi River, which would inspire much of his later literary work.
His work as a typesetter and printer took him to New York City, but he was soon drawn back to the Mississippi where he enjoyed a two-year stint as a steamboat captain, until the Civil War broke out in 1861.
Clemens joined the Confederate Army, but deserted after two weeks and headed west, working as a miner and local journalist, until he gained national acclaim for his story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which the New York Saturday Press published in 1865 under the pen name "Mark Twain." Doors began to open for Clemens: He traveled extensively and was published frequently.
Twain's body of work is vast and varied. He wrote travelogues, humorous verse, literary reviews, and even an autobiography, but it's his novels and short stories that have earned him his place among the great writers of history. Memorable works like The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court are shining examples of Twain's humor and unique grasp of narrative. But it's his The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (conceived as a sequel to his popular novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) that is considered his masterwork.
Published in the U.S. on February 18, 1885, Huck Finn stirred up controversy from the start. Some hailed it as a brilliantly scathing commentary on racism and values of the antebellum South, while others deemed it coarse, crude, and insufferably inelegant. Several libraries banned the book from the outset, and it's still one of the most challenged books taught in the American school system.
With Huck Finn, Twain explores issues of racism and hypocrisy, and notions of morality and social responsibility in America -- not only in the pre-Civil War days in which the story is set, but also, by implication, in the supposedly desegregated and unified post-Civil War America that he witnessed while writing the novel -- issues that this country is still fighting with today. We are all Huck, struggling to reconcile what we've been taught with what our own conscience and experience tell us, just as we are all Jim, seeking shelter from that which oppresses us and yearning for the right to live free.
In 1909, Twain was famously quoted as saying, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" Add that prediction to the long list of things he got right: Mark Twain passed away from a heart attack on April 21, 1910, a day after the comet made its closest approach to Earth. He left behind a wealth of fantastic stories, a great many friends and admirers, and an iconic symbol of the brash and hopeful spirit that embodies the American experience: Huckleberry Finn.
Suggested Sites...
- Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum - includes the home in which the Clemens family lived from 1844 to 1853, as well as the Becky Thatcher house, the John Clemens law office, and the new Mark Twain Museum.
- Mark Twain House and Museum - National Historic Landmark and Tiffany-decorated home in Hartford, Connecticut, where Samuel Clemens raised his family and wrote from 1874 to 1891.
- Complete Works of Mark Twain - compendium of Mark Twain works online.
- Mark Twain Tonight! - Watch Hal Holbrook play Mark Twain in his one-man show.
- Wikipedia: Big River - information on the Broadway musical by William Hauptman and Roger Miller.
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