Mark Twain

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Mark Twain

Mark Twain is believed to be the father of all American literature. Twain was known for writing about issues of his time such as slavery, due to his style of honesty and truth he was known as one of the very first modernist writers. Mark Twain had many inspirations that motivated him to write his novels. The inspirations varied from events that he witnessed and experienced, people he met in his lifetime, other stories he read or heard about, and his environment.

The writer known as, Mark Twain, was actually born with the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, to John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens on November 30, 1835. While Samuel Clemens was very young the Clemens family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, the inspiration for most of Samuel Clemens novels. John Marshall Clemens worked as a lawyer, but he was very successful, so he also did some work as a land speculator. The Clemens family was never very wealthy but they were middle class. John Marshall Clemens was agonistic and his wife, Jane Lampton Clemens, was a strong Presbyterian. This is influenced much of Samuel Clemens religious beliefs and also his satirical attitude in his novels. Samuel Clemens had a relatively normal childhood until the age of twelve when his father died. The same year his father died Clemens ended his formal school and became his brother Orion's, who was a printer, apprentice. He was a printer's apprentice until his eighteenth birthday. He then learned to be a river pilot for the price of $500. Even though Clemens had become a riverboat pilot he still wrote but under pseudonyms such as Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, W. Epaminandos Adrastus Blab, Sergeant Fathom, and Josh. Clemens worked as a river pilot...

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Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1884.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 1876.

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