Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family. They soon moved to Hannibal, Missouri, Where Twain was brought up.After his father death in 1847, Twain was apprenticed to a printer. He started his career as a journalists by writing for the Hannibal Journal. He later worked as a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot (1857-61). His famous penname Twain adopted from the call ('Mark twain!'-meaning by the mark of two fathoms) used when sounding river shallows. In 1861 Twain served briefly as a confederate irregular. The Civil War put an end to the steamboat traffic, and during this time Twain was out of work, he lived in a primitive cabin on Jackass Hill and tried his luck as a goldminer.
Twian moved to Virginia City, where he edited two years Territorial Enterprise. On February 3, 1863, 'Mark Twain' was born when he signed a humorus account with that pseudonym. In 1864 Twain left for California, where he worked in San Francisco as a reporter. After hearing a story about a frog, Twian made an entry in his notebook:"Coleman with his jumping frog - bet a stranger $50. - Stranger had no frog and C. got him one: In the meantime stranger filled C's frog full of shot and he couldn't jump. The strangers frog won." From these lines he developed 'Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog' which was published in The Saturday Press of New York on the 18th of November in 1865. It was reprinted all over the country and became the foundation stone of The Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County, And Other Sketches (1867). This work marked the beginning of Twain's literary career. Twian died on April 21st 1910.
MAJOR WORKS
1876- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
1883- Life On The Mississippi
1884- HuckleBerry Finn
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