MARK TWAINBy Kiselyova Sofia Grade 9 Zvenigovo High school # 3

Teacher : Chernykh Antonina Stepanovna

Samuel L. Clemens was born two months premature, on November 30th 1835.

He was born in Florida, Missouri the sixth child born to Jane Lampton (1803-1890) and John Marshall Clemens (1798-1847).

Hearing develops more quickly in premature babies and he did exhibit an unusual ability to retain sounds, which may explain his unique gift

of transforming spoken language into literature.

In 1839 the Twain family moved to their Hill Street home, now the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum with its famous whitewashed fence,

in the bustling port city of Hannibal, Missouri.

BIOGRAPHY

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in this cabin in the small frontier settlement of

Florida, Missouri.

His uncle and father both owned slaves from whom he would listen to stories and

songs. This is where he learned to love story telling. Missouri was one of the

fifteen slave states when the American Civil War broke out, so Twain grew up

amongst the racism, lynch mobs, hangings, and general inhumane oppression of African Americans.

In the childhood Twain was fascinated and wanted to be a steamboat pilot.

Earliest Known Photo of Clemens

BIOGRAPHY

His father died when he was 11 years old and he left school after

5th grade. Sam did not care much for “traditional” schooling, but he was educated, and enjoyed the teachings of William McGuffey’s “Eclectic Reader”. The Reader was a progressive learning tool

that conformed to children’s cognitive strengths and drew

children into an active learning process based on

“conversational” teaching and “wholesome” values: patriotism, charity, honesty, hard work, and

a reverence for the Christian God.

Sam at 15

EDUCATION

When he was 16 (1851), Sam began contributing humorous pieces, and occasionally stood in as Editor when his brother Orion was away.

Sam left Hannibal in June of 1853 . The next three and half years found him moving between New York, Philadephia, Washington D.C., Muscatine (Iowa), St. Louis, Keokuk (Iowa), and Cincinnati. In February of 1857, he took passage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, with the intention of embarking on the Amazon River to seek his fortune in the then thriving coca trade. He was just twenty-one years old. 

His plans changed quickly when he met Riverboat pilot Horace Bixby. Sam's boyhood dream to become a steamboat pilot was revived. In April of 1861, when the Civil War caused the suspension of civilian river traffic on the Mississippi, Sam's career as a steamboat pilot came to an abrupt end.

TRAVELING

Sam at 18

First job was as a printers apprentice in Missouri.From Missouri he went to New York and Philadelphia and worked for several newspapers .In 1857 he came back to Missouri and worked as a riverboat captain. In 1861 Mark Twain became a silver miner in Nevada; he was unsuccessful. In Nevada he began to write for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper; this is when he started going by the name of Mark Twain.

In 1864, Clemens moved to California and worked as a reporter in San Francisco. It was there that he began to establish a nationwidereputation as a humorist.

In 1865 Twain published his first short story, “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”.

CAREER

CLEMENS TO TWAIN

In 1863 Sam Clemens began signing his works with the pseudonym Mark Twain.

“Mark Twain” means “two fathoms deep”.

This was the name he was known by for the rest of his life.

FAMILYMark Twain met Olivia (Livy) Landon in 1869.The couple secretly courted for a year. At 34 years of age he married Olivia Langdon Clemens. She

was the daughter of a New York coal magnate, a member of the country’s wealthy elite. She would be partner, editor, and fellow traveler

in success and failure for the next thirty-five years. Twain enjoyed a successful marriage with his wife.

He had 4 children:Langdon (1870)– born premature, lived only two years Susy – contracted meningitis and died August, 1896Clara (1874)Jean (1880) – developed epilepsy and died of a seizure in 1909 on Christmas Eve. Jean was only 28 years old. On that day he wrote: “Possibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet crashes through his heart.”

Livy

TWAIN’S WRITING STYLE

Common word usage – deliberately misspelled words and incorrect grammar to properly display dialect

Relatively short, simple sentences

Descriptive detail is straightforward

THE WORLD'S FIRST CELEBRITY

By 1900 Twain had become America’s foremost celebrity. He was invited to attend ship launchings, anniversary gatherings, political conventions, and countless dinners. Reporters met him at every port of call, anxious to print a new quip from the famous humorist. To enhance his image, he took to wearing white suits and loved to stroll down the street and see people staring at him. In time, the Clemens home became a revolving

door for the leading names of the day: Howells, Sherman, Cable, Harte, and others. But it also saw Clemens involve himself in fanciful

investment schemes that led to his bankruptcy—and eventual departure.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

Honorary Degrees• Yale University (1901)

o Master of Arts• University of Missouri

(1902)• Oxford University (1907)

o Doctrine of Literature Owned publishing company

Charles L. Webster & Comp. World renowned for speeches

and lectures Great American Author

TWAIN QUOTES• “Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century”

• “When in doubt, tell the truth.”

• “Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great. “

• “Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”

• “The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them.”

• “Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

• “If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.”

Born:11/30/1835

Died:04/21/1910

Halley’s Comet

Florida, Missouri

Redding, Connecticut

DEATH

“ I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointments in my life if I don’t’ go out with Halley’s Comet.

The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out

together. “- Mark Twain, a Biography

Mark Twain slipped into a coma. That night his heart failed and he died in bed.When he died on April 21, 1910, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.” By then, Sam Clemens had long since ceased to be a private citizen. He had become Mark Twain, a proud possession of the American nation.

Mark Twain was one of the great artists of all time. He was and is one authentic giant of american national literature.

Twain's quotes and humor are as popular today as

at any time in American history. 

House Museum

Sculpture in Washington

Tombstone

PHOTOS AND INFORMATION FROM

http://twainproject.blogspot.ruhttp://www.twainquotes.comhttp://www.iwise.com http://www.easylit.com/marktwain/twainhistory.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/marktwain/index.html