Mark Twain (1835–1910), the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American novelist, humorist, and lecturer whose sharp wit and unmistakable voice made him, in William Faulkner's estimation, "the father of American literature." Born in Missouri and raised along the Mississippi River, he drew his pseudonym from the riverboat cry for safe water and mined his boyhood on its banks for the settings of his most enduring works, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — the latter often hailed as the Great American Novel. Before turning to fiction, he worked as a printer, steamboat pilot, frontier journalist, and silver prospector, experiences that filled his writing with vivid character, tall-tale humor, and an unerring ear for American vernacular. Beneath the laughter, however, ran a current of fierce moral seriousness: Twain skewered slavery, imperialism, racism, and human folly with a satirical edge that has lost none of its bite. By the time of his death, he was among the most famous men in the world, and his work remains a cornerstone of American letters.
Mark Twain (1835–1910), the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American novelist, humorist, and lecturer whose sharp wit and unmistakable voice made him, in William Faulkner's estimation, "the father of American literature." Born in Missouri and raised along the Mississippi River, he dr...