Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

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Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Missouri in 1835. He worked as a printer’s apprentice and riverboat pilot before turning to writing. He was a popular entertainer and author of travel narratives, including The Innocents Abroad (1869). Widely known as an accomplished humorist, his tone took a darker turn at the end of his life, especially after the deaths of his wife and daughters. He died April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut.

Twain’s work is often celebrated as creating a uniquely American literary voice. He is widely accepted as one of the foremost humorist and regionalist writers of the nineteenth century. Although his comedy doesn’t always translate for contemporary readers, he offered an often-biting look at the social problems facing American culture. His sometimes-controversial novels, especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), are still popular today. As Thomas V. Quirk notes, if Adventures is truly the great American novel, "its greatness may lie in its continuing ability to touch a nerve in the American national consciousness that is still raw and troubling.” Twain’s fiction often asks readers to consider how much has changed in America since his work was first published.