The Story Of Mark Twain

Halley’s comet approached the earth yet again on November 16, 1835; it was two weeks later that its gift to earth was found. His name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, otherwise known as the brilliant Mark Twain. He was born as the sixth kid in a family of seven, where only 4 of the kids, including himself, actually survived past childhood. He lived in Missouri for his early life, birthed in Florida, Missouri and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri (the place in which the main town for Tom Sawyer and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is inspired by). It was in this town in which he grew up and learned many of his basic principles. Due to Missouri’s entrance as a slave state his dad and uncle did own slaves, but unlike other Southerners who hated them and looked down upon them because of these origins, he grew to like them due to this. As a kid he often hung out with the slaves and listened in on their stories and superstition, enjoying their way and take on life. This experience is what prompted him to write a like relationship in The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn between Huck and Jim. At the young age of twelve he left school and got a job as a printer’s apprentice. Within three years he became a typesetting and an occasional contributor to the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper journal that ran in Hannibal. After becoming an adult he diverged from his small town roots and worked as a printer in several major cities and educated himself using public libraries. After four years of this life he returned back to his home state.
It was at this time that he was convinced to take up a job as a steamboat pilot. This early job was highly rewarding and a job that he highly enjoyed. Due to this nice lifestyle, which he loved, many of his early written works were much happier, due to his happiness. He didn’t find the same sadness in the world as he did later so he didn’t write about it; instead he merely focused on the happy. Sadly this came to an end in the 1861 with the breakout of the civil war. The traffic on the Mississippi was closed and thusly he had no more jobs to work. He joined the confederate army but quit within two weeks of doing so.
He started to travel west now going to explore those lands. His brother got a job in the Nevada territory and he followed him to that area and started mining for a while. Also while he was in the west he wrote more newspaper articles. It was here in which he first used his pen name, Mark Twain. Soon after this his first literary success came in form of a tall tale titled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
It was after this he which he gained more attention and went on a few reporting jobs. After these jobs he met Oliva Langdon and soon after this he married her. After a while the two moved to Hartford, Connecticut. It was during this time in which he wrote a huge bulk of his work. During this time it was not overly happy like the works of prior but it also wasn’t overly sad and critical like the works of the future, it contained a good mix of both. A good example of this would be The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, where there are many social ideas being critiqued but there is also the fun adventure element of the prior book, Tom Sawyer.
During these years he obtained a substantial amount of money from his stories and spent all of it on a rich and extravagant lifestyle. He also invested in many things such as new inventions of the time and ran his own publishing company for a bit. He did some lecture circuits at times, giving lectures to those that wanted to hear them also to gain money.
In 1896 his daughter Suzy died which launched Twain into a deep depression. This lasted for most of the rest of his life. During these years he focused on his last works, which were much darker due to his sadness of the time. He also was very critical of Imperialist countries considering what they were doing as wrong and wishing for them to stop.
In 1910 when Haley’s comet returned to earth it took away this gift just as it left it here, as he died one day later from a heart attack.