A Brief Introduction to Mark Twain's Life

Childhood

Mark Twain was born on November 3th, 1835 in a poor lawyer's family in rural Florida, Missouri, USA. He is the sixth child of seven children in his family. He only has two brothers and sisters who can survive after childhood. His two brothers and sisters are Olian (July 17, 1825-December 11, 1897) and Pamela)(1827 September 19, 1827-August 31, 194). His mother Margaret died when he was four years old, and his brother Benjamin)(1832 June 8, 1832-May 12, 1842) also died three years later. His other brother Pleasant(1828-1829) lived only three months before Twain was born. After these brothers and sisters who were older than Mark Twain, Twain had another younger brother-Henry Clemens)(1838 July 13, 1838-June 21, 1858). When Twain was 4 years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port city on the Mississippi River, which became the inspiration for the city of St. Petersburg in his later works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and A Wanderer's Tale. At that time, Missouri was a federal slave state, and young Twain began to understand slavery, which became the theme in his adventure novels.

Mark Twain is color blind, which aroused his humorous jokes in social circles. In March 1847, when Twain was 11 years old, his father died of pneumonia. The following year, he became a printing apprentice. In 1851, he became a compositor and contributed articles, and began to write a draft for Hannibal Journal founded by his brother Olian. At the age of 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in new york, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinnati. Twain returned to Missouri at the age of 22. On the trip down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, the ship's pilot "Beesby" asked Twain to be a ship's pilot for life, which was the third highest paid occupation in the United States at that time, with a monthly salary of $25 (equivalent to $155, now).

At that time, because ships were made of very flammable wood, they could not turn on the lights at night. Pilots need to have a rich knowledge of changing rivers, so they can avoid hundreds of ports and woodlands along the banks. Twain spent more than two years meticulously studying the 2 meters of the Mississippi River before he got the pilot's license (1859). During the training before getting the license, Twain persuaded his brother Henry Clemens to work with him on the Mississippi River. Henry died on June 21, 1858, because the ship where Henry worked exploded. Twain felt extremely guilty about this and felt himself responsible for the rest of his life. But he continued to work on the river and remained a navigator until the Civil War broke out in 1861, which reduced the traffic on the Mississippi River.

Travel and Family

Missouri is a slave state and is regarded by most people as part of the South, but Missouri has not joined the Union. When the war began, Twain and his friends joined a federal militia (which was described in a short story "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" in 1885) and joined a war in which one person was killed. Twain found that he couldn't stand killing anyone himself at all, so he left. His friend joined the confederate army; Twain went to his brother Olian, when Olian was appointed secretary to the governor of Nevada and was in charge of the west.

It took Twain and his brother more than two weeks to cross the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains by coach. They came to the Mormon society in Salt Lake City. These experiences became the main part of the book Hard Times, and provided information for the famous frog in Kacheng. Twain's journey ended at the silver mine in Virginia, Nevada. There, he became a miner.

After giving up his job as a miner, Twain worked for the Enterprise, a newspaper in Virginia City.

Twain traveled to San Francisco, California, where he continued to be a reporter and began to give speeches. He met other writers such as Brett Harder. Once he was assigned to Hawaii, and this became his first speech. In 1867, a local newspaper offered a boat trip to the Mediterranean.

During his trip to Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a series of famous travel letters "A Fool's Travel" collected in 1869. He also met Charles Langdon and saw a photo of Langdon's sister Ou Li Langdon. Twain fell in love with her at first sight. They met in 1868, got engaged a year later, and got married in Aymara, new york in 187. Ou Li via gave birth to her son Langdon, but Langdon died of diphtheria at the age of 19 months.

in p>1871, the twains moved to Hartford, Connecticut. There Olivia gave birth to three daughters: Susie, Clara and Jean. Twain also became a good friend of writer William Dean Howells.

Twain traveled to Europe again after that, which was described in a 188 book, The Wandering Overseas. In 19, he returned to the United States and paid off his old company. Twain's marriage lasted for 34 years until Olivia died in 194.

In p>196, Twain began to write his own autobiography for North American Review Monthly. A year later, Oxford University awarded him a doctorate in literature.

Twain lived longer than Jean and Susie. He went through a period of melancholy, which began when his beloved daughter Susie died of meningitis in 1896. Ou Li's death in 194 and Jean's death on December 24th, 199 made Twain even more melancholy.

writer's career

Mark Twain's first masterpiece, A Frog in Cartown, was first published in new york Saturday Newspaper on November 18th, 1865. The only reason why this work was published there was because it was finished too late to be included in Atems Ward's collection of works featuring the American West.

After that, the Sacramento Federal newspaper sent Mark Twain to Hawaii, then known as the Sandwich Islands, as a correspondent and sent letters to the Federal newspaper about things there. Later, when he worked in San Francisco's California Land newspaper, he also wrote according to these humorous letters, because the California Land newspaper sent him from San Francisco to new york City via the Panama Canal as a roving reporter. At that time, he kept sending letters to newspapers for publication, recording what he saw and heard ironically and humorously. On June 8, 1867, Twain went to Philadelphia by yacht and stayed for five months. This trip led to the birth of A Fool's Travel.

In p>1872, Twain published his second travel literature, Hard Years, as a sequel to A Fool's Travel. Hard Times is a semi-autobiographical description of Twain's journey to Nevada and his later life in the western United States. This book satirizes American and western societies with the criticism of "fools" to many countries in Europe and the Middle East. Twain's next work, Hard Times, focuses on American society. The later Gilded Age is not a travel literature work, because the previous two books are travel literature works, and this is his first time to write a novel. This book is also famous because it is the only book written by Twain in cooperation with others. This book was written by Twain and his neighbor Charles Dudley Werner.

Twain's two subsequent works are all about his experiences on the Mississippi River. In 1875, a series of sketches of Old Times on the Mississippi River were published in Atlantic Monthly, the most characteristic of which was Twain's awakening to romanticism. Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi River after Old Times. Then Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which describes his childhood in Hannibal. Twain modeled tom sawyer's character by imitating his childhood character. The book also features a supporting role, Huckleberry Finn.

Although the story of The Prince and the Beggar often appears in many movies and literary works today, it is not generally accepted. This is Twain's first attempt to write "beggar". Its disadvantage is that Twain did not have enough experience in English society. During the writing of The Prince and the Beggar, Twain also started the writing of The Naughty Boy's Wandering, and also finished another travel book, The Wandering Overseas. The Odyssey Overseas is Mark Twain's travels to Central and Southern Europe.

Twain's later published work, The Wandering of a Naughty Child, made him a more famous and great American writer. The Naughty Boy is the sequel of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the serious atmosphere is stronger than the latter. This book has become a required book in most schools in the United States, because Huck gave up obeying the rules, which many people of this age think (Huck's story is set in the 185 s with slavery). In the summer of 1876, after the release of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain wrote about 4 pages of the story of The Wandering of an urchin.

Twain's wife died in 194, and only then was he able to publish books that his wife didn't like, which was his book examiner and editor. One of these books is The Mysterious Stranger, which was not published in Twain's lifetime, so people found three versions of the manuscript between 1897 and 195. These three versions make the publication of this book very confusing, and now the first version written by Twain is available.

Twain's last work is his oral autobiography. Some file keepers and editors rearranged the autobiography to make it more in line with the general format, so some humorous words of Twain were deleted.

Financial problems

The friendship between Mark Twain and Henry Roger in his later years. Twain made a lot of money from publishing works, but his improper investment made him waste a lot of money, most of which was invested in some new inventions. This includes a new hoop, a new steam engine, a collotype (a machine used to engrave printing plates) and a typesetting machine. Finally, there is his publishing house, which successfully sold ulysses grant's memoirs at first, but later failed.

If Twain's works can be written, the credit should also go to one of his new friends, because he solved Twain's financial difficulties. In 1893, he began a 15-year friendship with Henry Roger, a financier and head of Standard Oil Company. Roger first filed for bankruptcy for Twain. Then Roger handed over the copyright of Twain's works to Twain's wife Olivia to prevent creditors from winning the copyright. Finally Roger returned all Twain's money to the creditors. Twain then began his global lecture tour and paid off all his debts.

posterity's evaluation of him

the master of modern humorous literature!

a world-class writer representing American literature!

He is an urchin with a pure heart, and a knight who bravely holds a sword!