Mark Twain was born
Samuel Langhorn Clemens in Florida, Missouri. Twain drew on his boyhood along the Mississippi River for many of his characters and plots. His formal schooling ended early and he learned the print trade.
In 1853, after writing for newspapers in Hannibal, Missouri, he left for St. Louis, Philadelphia and New York. He returned to the river in 1857 and became a Mississippi steamboat pilot until the Civil War put an end to river traffic.
His fame as a humorist and story teller was established with the publication of the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Lecturing increased his reputation, but it was The Innocent Abroad that gave him a firm place in the world of literature.
A careful and conscious artist, Twain as a humorist was master of the techniques of exaggeration, irreverence and deadpan solemnity. Sensitive to the sound of language, he introduced colloquial speech into American fiction. He was unsurpassed as a creator of character, preeminently in the immortal Huck Finn, and as a keen observer of the social scene.
