Tác giả Mark Twain

Mark Twain
(1835-1910)
Biography
- He was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835 by the birth name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
- He was the 6th child out of 7.
- At age 11, his father died of pneumonia and he left school.
- He moved around very often.
Biography
- As a young man Twain worked as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. When he started his writing career, Samuel Clemens adopted the name “Mark Twain,” which meant two fathoms, a safe depth for a riverboat.

Biography
- In 1861, Samuel Clemens avoided the Civil War by going west. He took his first writing job as reporter at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.
Soon, he began using the name Mark Twain and it was also time when he first discovered his talent, his calling, and his voice.
Biography
- He had many jobs. Here are just a few:
Writer, printer apprentice, typesetter, apprentice riverboat pilot, secretary and government worker, miner, reporter, newspaper correspondent, editor, and owner of a small publishing company.
At the age of 34 he married Olivia Langdon Clemens. She was the daughter of a New York coal magnate. She would be partner, editor, and fellow traveler in success and failure. She would also furnish him her family’s home in Elmira, New York, a place where he visited often and wrote many of his best-loved books.
Pictures from www.pbs.org
Biography
- His beloved wife and daughter died, which led him on the path of depression and an eventual death.
- He was born two weeks after the time Halley’s comet was closest to Earth and he died 75 years later, one day after Halley’s comet was closest to Earth.
Biography
“I came in with Halley`s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don`t go out with Halley`s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: `Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’”
Achievements
He wrote many books that are still read today like:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
The Prince and the Pauper (1881)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
Roughing It (1872)
He developed as a speaker and traveled on lecture circuits, much in demand. His early performances combined humor, information and eloquence in measures that delighted most people.
When he died on April 21, 1910, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.” By then, Sam Clemens had long since ceased to be a private citizen. He had become Mark Twain, a proud possession of the American nation.

“I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.”—Mark Twain
Pictures from www.pbs.org
Achievements
In short,
Mark Twain was one of the great artists of all time. He was and is one authentic giant of the national literature.
Twain`s quotes and humor are as popular today as at any time in American history
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live.”
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man`s.”
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“Humor is mankind`s greatest blessing.”

“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.”

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can`t read them.”
“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money."
“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
"Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person."
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