Mark Twain 3 Essay, Research Paper

I chose to do Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) because I believe Twain is the greatest American author of all time.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens may have been one of the greatest American authors of all time. Samuel, Son of John and James Clemens, was born on November 30, 1835 in the town of Florida, Missouri. Samuel was born two months premature and it seemed unlikely that Samuel would survive the harsh winter but indeed he did. Death would take other children in the family instead: Margaret in 1836, Benjamin in 1842, and Henry in 1858(Miller, 2&3).

According to Miller, Samuel remembered his father as:

“A proud, a silent austere man who considered himself to be a member of the professional class both by virtue of his birth and by the fact that he studied law. He was Justice of the Peace in Florida and he owned 3 slaves, inherited by the death of his father.”

Samuel s father was the owner of a 75,000 acre estate in Tennessee–land he had purchased for 500 dollars convinced that he was securing his family s eventual fortune. Despite owning an estate in Tennessee, in 1839 James Clemens moved his family to Hannibal, Missouri where he hoped to find prosperity. 8 years later, Samuel s father died of pneumonia leaving behind a family of five. Samuel was 11 and was devastated.(Miller, 4&5)

Samuel Clemens was a difficult child. He almost drowned on nine separate occasions. Within a year of his fathers death, Samuel was apprenticed to a local printer, Joseph Ament. He worked for nearly two years for Ament, leaving him in October, 1850 in order to join the Hannibal Western Union, a small weekly newspaper that had been bought by his brother Orion Clemens. Orion promised Samuel good wages but was seldom able to pay it(Miller, 5).

By 1853, Samuel was ready to try to make his own way. In May of that year, at the age of 17, he left Hannibal for St. Louis, New York, and Philadelphia. For the next two years, he supported himself–often only just barely– as a typesetter for a variety of newspapers, while enjoying what would prove to be the first of many travels. By the spring of 1855, he was once again working for Orion, now a printer in Keokuk, Iowa.(Sanborn, 89-93)

By this time, Samuel Clemens had discovered the joy of seeing his words in print. He wrote simply because he found it easy to write, he had no idea of what he wanted to do in life. In November of 1856, Samuel found a 50 dollar bill while walking down the street, which was a lot of money in Pre-Civil War America. Being the good Samaritan that he was, he advertised the money for four days in which no one claimed it. At that point, he felt entitled to use it himself. He bought a ticket for Cincinnati, where he secured work and remained the rest of the winter.(Sanborn, 104)

During the Cincinnati winter, Samuel read a book about the Amazon and decided that his fortune would be assured if he only could get to Brazil. With this mind in goal he left Cincinnati on board a New Orleans-bound steamboat piloted by Horace Bixby who agreed to teach Samuel what he knew for $100 in advance. Samuel s experiences form the basis of Life on the Mississippi.(Miller, 6)

In the Spring of 1858, Samuel was temporarily working for another pilot a Mr. Brown on board the Pennsylvania. Brown was a tyrant and regularly abused Samuel and his brother Henry. Samuel urged Henry that it was his duty to help the passengers in case of accident. A few days later, the Pennsylvania exploded just south of Memphis and Henry was blown clear of the boat without being harmed but he swam back to the boat to save the other passengers and his lungs were penetrated by hot steam. Henry was then brought to a hospital where Samuel watched him die. Samuel blamed himself for Henry s death.(Sanborn, 126-127)

In 1860, he moved to Nevada, convinced that he would make his fortune by mining silver and gold. He also began to contribute occasional pieces to the territory s leading newspaper.(Miller 8) After realizing he had failed as a prospector, he had accepted a job from the Enterprise to join its staff as a full-time reporter for twenty-five dollars a week, walking over sixty miles through uninhabited country in order to take up his post. Clemens became an important figure in Virginia City, his opinion respected and it was during this time that he first began to call himself “Mark Twain.”(Cox, 3)

In June 1864, Twain moved to San Francisco where he joined the staff of the Morning Call. Twain did not enjoy his work on the call and he was fired–for the first and only time in his life.(Twain, 119)

On December 15, 1866, Samuel Clemens left San Francisco for New York. During his first months in New York Twain enjoyed exploring the city s low life; on one occasion he was even arrested for brawling and forced to spend a night in jail.(Kaplan 1-3)

Samuel Clemens married Olivia Langdon in February 1870, after a formal engagement of one year.(Willis, 54-55) Their 33 year marriage would be exceptionally happy something to which almost everyone who knew them testified at length. His personal happiness was marred only by the death of his wife and the death of his eighteen-month-old son in June 1872, following an outing in which the absent-minded father had allowed a fur blanket that had been protecting the child to fall aside.(Miller 17)

Twain s years as a writer were extremely successful and he made many novels and other literary works.

I believe Mark Twain gave a great piece of advice when he wrote in his Autobiography:

” In this Autobiography I shall keep in mind the fact that I am speaking from the grave. I am literally speaking from the grave, because I shall be dead when the book issues from the press.

I speak from the grave rather than with my living tongue, for a good reason: I can speak thus freely. When a man is writing a book dealing with the privacies of his life a book which is to be read while he is still alive he shrinks from speaking his whole frank mind; all his attempts to do it fail, he recognizes that he is trying to do a thing which is wholly impossible to a human being. The frankest and freest and privatest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter; the writer gets his limitless freedom of statement and expression from his sense that no stranger is going to see what he is writing .It has seemed to me that I could be as frank and as free and unembarrassed as a love letter if I knew that what I was writing would be exposed to no eye until I was dead, and unaware, and indifferent.”

(Twain, Preface)

I believe Twain is saying that he holds back nothing because he knows he will be dead when it is published. He uses a love letter as a metaphor for the form of autobiography he is writing in. He knows he will be in the grave when the reader reads what he is writing. I believe that what Twain is saying is true, if you know that people are going to read what you write about yourself before you die, you will hold back what you don t want people to know because if they do know, the people will criticize you and know all your secrets.

I believe Mark Twain was the most influential and the greatest American Author of all time.

Work-Cited

1. Willis, Resa

“Mark and Livy: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman

Who Almost Tamed Him”

Copyright 1992 by Resa Willis

2. Miller, Robert Keith

“Mark Twain”

Copyright 1983 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.

3. Kaplam, Justin

“Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain”

Copyright 1966 by Justin Kaplan

4. Cox, James M.

“Mark Twain: the Fate of Humor”

Copyright 1966 by Princeton University Press

5. Sanborn, Margaret

“Mark Twain: the Bachelor Years”

Copyright 1990 by Margaret Sanborn

6. Twain, Mark

“The Autobiography of Mark Twain”

Copyright 1959 by Mark Twain Company