Four Years Clemens Plowed The Missouri example essay topic

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in the " 'almost invisible' " village of Florida, Missouri-then the border of the American frontier (Miller 2). "Mark Twain" was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of the major authors of American fiction (World 528). He had a wide spread of family in his life including a mother, a father, a sister, three brothers, a wife, a son, and three daughters (Waisman OL). Twain was considered the greatest humorist in American literature (World 528).

"Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on Nov. 30, 1835, the sixth child of John and Jane Clemens". Several years later, in 1839, the family moved (Waisman OL). At seven in the morning, he arrived in Hannibal, Missouri, where his boyhood was going to be spent (Twain 428). "At the age of 13 he became a full-time apprentice to a local printer.

He became a delivery boy, grocery clerk, and blacksmith's helper during summers or after school" (Gwinn 75). "Like many American authors of his day, Twain had little formal education. Instead of attending high school and college, he gained his education in print shops and newspaper offices. When his brother Orion, 10 years older than he, established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a compositor for that paper. Since Orion was as poor a businessman as his father had been, the Journal did not do well, and young Clemens became restless. In 1853 he set out as an itinerant printer and worked his way eastward on newspapers in St. Louis, New York City, and Philadelphia.

Except for a brief period as a printer in St. Louis, he worked at his trade for Orion in Keokuk, Iowa, until the fall of 1856. When in 1856 he began another period of wandering, he had a commission to write some comic travel letters for the Keokuk Daily Post. For almost four years Clemens plowed the Missouri; he later remembered these years as the most carefree of his life (Gwinn 76). In 1861 he went to Carson City, Nevada, as secretary to his brother.

"He next edited for two years the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and in 1864 moved to San Francisco as a reporter" (Magnusson 1482). "In 1866, Twain traveled to the Hawaiian Islands, where he acted as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union. Following his return to San Francisco, he began a profitable lecture tour. In 1867, Twain took a voyage to Europe and the Holy Land aboard the steamship Quaker City. In the 1800's, Mark Twain established and operated his own publishing firm.

He also became interested in various investments, especially an elaborate typesetting machine. He lost almost $200,000 in investment in the machine between 1881 and 1894. Also, his publishing company declared bankruptcy in April 1894. Thus, in January 1895, Twain found himself publicly humiliated by his inability to pay his debts. Twain eventually recovered from his financial difficulties, thought his continued writing and a successful lecture tour in 1895 and 1896.

During his much publicized tour, Twain lectured in such places as India, South Africa, and Australia. By the time he returned, he had become an international hero. Twain enjoyed this attention, and his habits of smoking cigars or a pipe and wearing unconventional white suits contributed to his showy image" (World 529). Orion, Pleasant, Margaret, Benjamin, and Henry Clemens were Samuel's siblings (Waisman OL). He was four when the family moved to Hannibal, where his father kept a dry goods and grocery store, practiced law, and entered local politics. At age 11, Samuel's father died.

"From that time on, it became necessary for Samuel to contribute to the family's support" (Gwinn 75). Twain encountered a woman named Olivia L. Langdon (World 529). "Olivia Langdon was born in Elmira, New York, the daughter of a very wealthy coal businessman. She was an unhealthy teenager, suffering from tuberculosis of the spine from age 14 until about 20. Her poor health followed her throughout her life.

Olivia met Sam Clemens in 1867 through his relationship with her brother Charles, who was Sam's fellow passenger on the Quaker City excursion" (Waisman OL). "The couple were wed on Feb. 2, 1870. In 1874, Twain and his family moved into a luxurious new 19-room house in Hartford" (World 529). Born in 1870, their only son was named Langdon Clemens, after his mother. Their three daughters, Olivia Susan Clemens, born in 1872, Clara Langdon Clemens, born in 1874, and Jane Lampoon Clemens, born in 1880, all carried down family names as well (Waisman OL). "Following Twain's brief career as a newspaper editor and columnist in Buffalo, N.Y., he and his wife moved to Hartford, Conn., in 1871".

Samuel's only son, Langdon, died in 1872 (World 529). "Susy Clemens was born in Elmira, N.Y., and lived a short life, dying at the age of 23. In childhood, Susy often had poor health, similar to her mother. At 13, she wrote a biography of her father, which was included as part of Twain's Chapters From My Autobiography" (Waisman OL)". 'I shall have no trouble in not knowing what to say about him,' she observed in its opening paragraph, 'as he is a very striking character. ' Clara Clemens wrote My Father, Mark Twain (1931) many years later" (Zwick OL).

Susy attended Bryn Mawr College for a year in 1890. "The following year, Susy became very ill, and was diagnosed with spinal meningitis. Just three days later, she died in the Clemens' Hartford home". Clara Clemens, born in Elmira, N.Y., had a varied education while growing up; including home schooling; a year at a public high school in Hartford, Connecticut; and a tenure at a boarding school in Berlin. Jean Clemens, born in Elmira, N.Y., was frail and unhealthy as a child, as was her mother and sisters. "She suffered from epilepsy, and had her first seizures at the age of 10.

Jean was in constant need of medical attention throughout her life, and Sam was very protective of her. Jean was involved with animal rights issues and various hobbies". (Waisman OL). "Clemens newspaper career began while still a boy in Hannibal.

By the age of 16, in 1851, Sam was working for his brother Orion's Hannibal Western Union, for which he wrote his first published sketches and worked as a printer". 'Mark Twain' was a pseudonym drawn from the great highway that flowed south past Hannibal, the Mississippi River" (Meet OL). In 1848, he was apprentice to printer Joseph Ament, who published the Missouri Courier. "Over the next two years, he continued at the Western Union, occasionally taking stints as editor in Orion's absence. In 1852, Sam published several sketches in Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post. Clemens left Hannibal in 1853, at age 18, and worked as a printer in New York City and Philadelphia over the next year".

During his travel, he published travel letters in the Hannibal Journal. "Clemens had been sporadically contributing humorous letters to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, the territory's most well-known newspaper, and, by September 1862, accepted a job to be a reporter for the paper, at $25 a week. Clemens covered the territorial legislature, local news items, and contributed humorous pieces. During his stint at the Enterprise, the 27-year-old Clemens was greatly influenced by Joseph Goodman, the paper's founder, and Dan De Quill e, a star writer; both men would be friends of Clemens for years to come". After 17 months, Clemens left the Enterprise for San Francisco (Waisman OL). "Although Mark Twain is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers, the world-renowned author once indicated that he would have preferred to spend his life as a famous Mississippi riverboat pilot".

His love of riverboats became the basis for many of his famous works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). "In 1865, when he published 'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country,' his version of a tall tale he heard in a mining camp, Twain became an international celebrity" (Ellis 518). "Following the publication of The Innocents Abroad (1869), a successful book of humorous travel letters, Twain moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was to make his home for the rest of his life. There he began using his past experiences as raw material for his books. He drew on his travels in the western mining region for Roughing It (1872) and turned his childhood experiences on the Mississippi into The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain traveled widely throughout his career, and his adventures abroad were fuel for a number of books.

Following the death of his wife and three of their four children, Twain's writing depicted an increasingly pessimistic view of society and human nature. His work, however, continued to display the same masterful command of language that had already established him as one of America's finest fiction writers" (Ellis 518). In conclusion, Mark Twain is an American humorist, writer, and lecturer who won a worldwide audience for his stories of youthful adventures (Ellis 75). It was in Virginia City on Feb. 3, 1863, that the pseudonym "Mark Twain" was born when Clemens was 27 years old (Ellis 76). After his father's death, he contributed to the family's support and started working with his brother, Orion (Ellis 75). Walt Whitman felt Mark Twain was one of the most "quintessentially" American writers this country has ever produced (N eider OL).

His writings have been especially popular among modern readers (World 528).