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Mark Twain Florida, Missouri, 30 Nov. 1835 - Hartford, Connecticut, 21 April 1910 • American novelist, philosopher, and short story writer full text search: the ledge - flash version* *	Samuel Langhorne Clemens, for nearly half a century known and celebrated as "Mark Twain," was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. He was one of the foremost American philosophers of his day; he was the world's most famous humorist of any day. During the later years of his life he ranked not only as America's chief man of letters, but likewise as her best known and best loved citizen. The beginnings of that life were sufficiently unpromising. The family was a good one, of old Virginia and Kentucky stock, but its circumstances were reduced, its environment meager and disheartening. The father, John Marshall Clemens – a lawyer by profession, a merchant by vocation – had brought his household to Florida from Jamestown, Tennessee, somewhat after the manner of judge Hawkins as pictured in The Gilded Age. Florida was a small town then, a mere village of twenty-one houses located on Salt River, but judge Clemens, as he was usually called, optimistic and speculative in his temperament, believed in its future. Salt River would be made navigable; Florida would become a metropolis. He established a small business there, and located his family in the humble frame cottage where, five months later, was born a baby boy to whom they gave the name of Samuel – a family name – and added Langhorne, after an old Virginia friend of his father. The child was puny, and did not make a very sturdy fight for life. Still he weathered along, season after season, and survived two stronger children, Margaret and Benjamin. By 1839 Judge Clemens had lost faith in Florida. He removed his family to Hannibal, and in this Mississippi River town the little	lad whom the world was to know as Mark Twain spent his early life. In Tom Sawyer we have a picture of the Hannibal of those days and the atmosphere of his boyhood there. His schooling was brief and of a desultory kind. It ended one day in 1847, when his father died and it became necessary that each one should help somewhat in the domestic crisis. His brother Orion, ten years his senior, was already a printer by trade. Pamela, his sister; also considerably older, had acquired music, and now took a few pupils. The little boy Sam, at twelve, was apprenticed to a printer named Ament. His wages consisted of his board and clothes – "more board than clothes," as he once remarked to the writer. He remained with Ament until his brother Orion bought out a small paper in Hannibal in 1850. The paper, in time, was moved into a part of the Clemens home, and the two brothers ran it, the younger setting most of the type. A still younger brother, Henry, entered the office as an apprentice. The Hannibal journal was no great paper from the beginning, and it did not improve with time. Still, it managed to survive –country papers nearly always manage to survive – year after year, bringing in some sort of return. It was on this paper that young Sam Clemens began his writings – burlesque, as a rule, of local characters and conditions – usually published in his brother's absence; generally resulting in trouble on his return. Yet they made the paper sell, and if Orion had but realized his brother's talent he might have turned it into capital even then. (read on... )
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ON MARK TWAIN'S BOOKSHELF Lyrical Ballads William Wordsworth / Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 1605 / 1615 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift, 1726 The Complete Works of Artemus Ward Artemus Ward, 2005 (reprint) The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane Alain-René Lesage, 1715-1735 . The Adventures of Roderick Random Tobias Smollett, 1748	BOOKS BY MARK TWAIN: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1884-1885 The story of Huck and his companion Jim, a runaway slave, as they travel down the Mississippi to escape from slavery and 'sivilization'.	WHAT TO READ AFTER HUCKLEBERRY FINN? TELL IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger, 1951 HUMOR FROM/ IN THE DEEP SOUTH A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole, 1980 PICARESQUE Tom Jones Henry Fielding, 1749 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow, 1953 TELL IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS The Color Purple Alice Walker, 1982 PICARESQUE I, Jan Cremer Jan Cremer, 1964 TELL IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS Sozaboy: a novel in rotten English Ken Saro-Wiwa, 1985 The Butcher Boy Patrick McCabe, 1992 [Het schnitzelparadijs] Khalid Boudou, 2001 HUMOR FROM/ IN THE DEEP SOUTH A Man in Full Tom Wolfe, 1998 Tourist Season Carl Hiaasen, 1986 PICARESQUE Tartarin of Tarascon Alphonse Daudet, 1862
	The Innocents Abroad 1869
	The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 1867
	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876 The tale of a boy's life in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River. Tom skips school and with his friends, Huck Finn and Jim, spends his days on mad adventures - some real, some imagined.
	The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson 1894
	The Prince and the Pauper 1881 Tom Canty and Edward Tudor could have been identical twins. Their birthdays and their faces match, but there the likeness stops. For Edward is prince, heir to King Henry VIII of England, whilst Tom is a miserable pauper. But fate intervenes, and their identities become confused. Soon the prince is thrown out of the palace in rags, leaving ignorant Tom to play the part of a royal prince.
	A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 1889 Black satire about a time traveler in the British Middle Ages.
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