Mark Twain

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Missouri in 1835, grew up in the small Mississippi River town of Hannibal. When he was eleven his father died, and he left school to work as a printer's apprentice. As a young man he was a pilot on the Mississippi; his pen name 'Mark Twain' is a riverman's call meaning 'two fathoms deep', water safe for a boat to pass. When the Civil War closed the river, he went west to prospect for gold and mine silver, without success, and became a journalist, winning sudden fame with the comic tale 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County'. He then travelled the world, wrote travel books and lectured everywhere, becoming the most popular writer and speaker in America. In later years bad investments bankrupted him, and he lost a beloved daughter and his wife in quick succession; his writing grew ever darker and more bitter. Halley's Comet appeared in the year of his birth and returned in the year of his death, just as he had predicted.