Today in History: November 30
Mark Twain
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn From the Book by Mark Twain," Everett Henry, Illustrator, 1959.
Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popularly known as Mark Twain, was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri and spent his childhood in nearby Hannibal. Twain is best known for the novels set in his boyhood world beside the Mississippi River, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
As a young man, Clemens worked as a typesetter for his brother Orion's newspaper before following his dream of navigating the Mississippi on paddle wheel steamboats. He piloted boats for three years until the outbreak of the Civil War stopped river traffic in 1861.
Clemens joined his brother in Nevada where Orion had been appointed Secretary of the Territory. Roughing It, first published in 1872, is Clemens's account of his journey. In the Prefatory, Clemens describes his writing style:
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.Prefatory to Mark Twain's Roughing It (1891).
California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives, 1849-1900
"Envious Contemplations," Illustration in Mark Twain's Roughing It (1891), Chapter 1, page 20.
California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives, 1849-1900
While in the West, Clemens stayed briefly at the California boarding house of uprooted Missourian Mrs. Lee Summers Whipple-Haslam. In her book Early Days in California, she recalls that her mother engaged Clemens in extended conversation:
As usual with Missourians, they imparted numerous and various details of ancient forefathers, and, after lengthy discussion, decided that according to all the rules and laws of Missouri, they were cousins.
Later, when other boarders, thinking Clemens "wonderful," asked if there were others like him in Missouri, she replied "no" and explained that "he was a Missouri freak that had broken loose from his hitching post."
While in the West, Clemens traveled to Hawaii and wrote for the Virginia City, Nevada newspaper Territorial Enterprise adopting the pseudonym Mark Twain. Two years later he moved to San Francisco where his writing gained further popularity and he developed the humorous style now famous throughout the world.
Envelope Addressed from Mark Twain to 'The Father-in-Law of the Telephone,'
from the Time Line of Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922),
Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers
The American Memory collection Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers features a letter from Mark Twain to Gardiner G. Hubbard, "The Father-in-law of the Telephone," dated December 27, 1890. In his familiar satirical style, Twain complains to Bell's father-in-law of the poor telephone service he has received in Hartford, Connecticut. He objects that there is no night service, and that he is regularly cut off while practicing his cursing. In fact, Twain enjoyed and made use of new inventions. For example, he was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to his publisher.
- Search the Library of Congress Online Catalog, using the option "Name Browse" found on the "Subj-Name-Title-Call#" search page to compile a bibliography of works by and about the author. Search on both Mark Twain and Samuel L. Clemens
- Read several of Mark Twain's novels provided online by American Studies at the University of Virginia:
- Innocents Abroad (1869)
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
- The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins (1893-1894)
- Search the full text of these novels along with the text of newspaper reviews and obituary notices about Mark Twain.
- Search the Today in History Archive on writer to find more features on American literary figures such as Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner.
- Search on Mark Twain in the collection Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record to view photographs of Clemens's home in Hartford, Connecticut and of the "Mark Twain Historic District" in Hannibal, Missouri.
Bird's Eye View of the City of Hannibal, Marion Co., Missouri, Drawn by Albert Ruger, 1869.
Panoramic Maps, 1847-1929 - Learn more about Samuel Clemens's home state:
- Visit the Today in History feature on Missouri.
- Search on Missouri in Panoramic Maps, 1847-1929 to view maps of the state.
- View panoramic photographs of the state in Taking the Long View, 1851-1991.
- See the Pathfinder Search Guide for Missouri prepared by the Learning Page.
- Learn more about Alexander Graham Bell's extended family relationships by visiting the The Bell Family Trees featured in the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers.