Mark Twain : biography
On the 30th of November in 1835 in Florida, Missouri State Samuel Clemens – the person that would be known as worldwide popular American writer Mark Twain was born. When he was born, the population of the city increased by one percent, as he was joking later. He was born in family of Jane and john Clemens; he didn’t know problem-free and satisfied life. Sam was a child when his family moved to Hannibal – town on the river Missouri. People of the town would become prototypes of the characters of his future books about Tom sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Scarcely had Sam started his 12th year when his father died from pneumonia. He left for the family nothing but debts. Sam Clemens gave up school and in order to make some money became a pupil of typist in local newspaper printing establishment. Sam’s elder brother decided to start his own business and publish a newspaper. Sam helped him in his business not only as a typist as also as a writer writing sharp uncompromising articles. The best pieces were the notes he wrote when his brother was absent. Having no restraining force Sam let his witticism full freedom being churned out by him, although the articles were disputable. At this very newspaper first pieces of belletristic literature by Samuel were published.
As Sam’s eighteenth year came was fed up sitting on one place and he started travelling – looking for a better life. He spent 4 years travelling around and after that got a profession of ship pilot. Sam worked at ships sailing along Missouri more than a year and at that very period he found his pen name for writing. Shout “Mark Twain” meant that the depth archived the limited and further movement of the ship was getting dangerous. Clemens might continue working on ships for the rest of his life but there started the civil war of 1861 and private ship companies closed. Sam had to look for a new job.
He served for voluntary military forces but not for long. In July of 1861 he moved to the center of the country – to the west. It happened that Samuel’s brother Orion was offered a position of governor’s secretary in Nevada State and the brothers went there with the couch through the prairie. Their way to the small town of miners Virginia took two weeks. the mines producer silver.
In order to make fast money Sam Clemens started working as a miner. He lived far away from civilization in camps of silver diggers. Later he would be able to describe miners’ lives in exact details in his texts. Unfortunately Samuel didn’t manage to make money out of that hard and sometimes pointless work; he gave up and got a position in local newspaper “Territorial enterprise” in Virginia. Working there he used his pen name Mark twain for the first time. In 1964 he moved to San-Francisco, California State. There he started writing feature stories and short stories for several newspapers at the same time. In 1865 he met his unquestionable literary successes. Newspapers all over the States published his humorous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” that won the glory of the best humorous litetrary production.
In spring of 1866 newspaper “Sacramento Union” send Mark Twain on a mission to Hawaii. His job consisted in writing letters to the editor describing his trip and the attendant adventures. Those letters would get great successes after publishing. One publisher, the owner of “Alta California” colonel Mac Comb offered Mark Twain to go on tour along his home state and lecture on the basis of the writer’s notes. Those lectures became popular immediately and besides the tour along the state the writer managed to earn a sum of money entertaining the audience at cost one dollar for one person.
Mark Twain wrote his first book in another travel. In 1867 he urged colonel Mac Comb the publisher of “Alta California” to pay for his travelling to Europe and Middle East. In June as a correspondent of two newspapers (“Alta California” and “New-York tribune”) he left for Europe on steamer “Quaker-city”. It’s notable that august he went to Russia and visited Yalta, Odessa, Sevastopol and Livadiyski palace – the residence on the emperor. The letters he sent from his travelling were sent to typists immediately and published as soon as possible. As Mark Twain came back to USA he put his travel sketches on base for his book published in 1869 – “The Innocents Abroad”. The book was spear only by subscription and got great successes. Actually, most Americans knew the writer only for this very book having no idea about his other writhing. Except Europe Twain also travelled to Africa, Asia and even visited Australia.
