Mark Twain is one of the America’s most famous authors. He wrote many books, including “ “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” “ and “ “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. “ Mark Twain’s own life was interesting enough to be a book.
Twain was born in 1835 in the state of Missouri, near the Mississippi River. He came from poor family. His father died when he was twelve, so he had to leave school. While still a boy, he worked as a riverboat pilot. He steered boats up and down the long Mississippi River.
The Civil War, which started in 1861, made traveling on the Mississippi impossible. Twain went west to Nevada. There he worked on a newspaper. In 1864 he went to California to find gold. Twain did not have much luck as a gold miner. He left California to travel to Europe. Twain wrote a book about his trips to Europe.
But the most important influence on Twain and his books was the Mississippi River. When Twain finally steeled down, he lived in a house with a porch that looked like the deck of the riverboat. “Huckleberry Finn,” “ Twain’s greatest book, is about the adventures of a boy on the Mississippi River. Another of Twain’s books is called “Life on the Mississippi”. “
In fact, even the name Mark Twain comes from the Mississippi. Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. On the river Samuel Clemens often heard the boatmen shout “Mark Twain!” This meant the water was twelve feet deep. When Samuel Clemens began to write he chose himself the name Mark Twain.
