Mark Twain Biography

Mark Twain	Samuel Langhorne Clemens Born: 1835-11-30 Birthplace: Florida, MO Died: 1910-04-21 Location of Death: Redding, CT Cause of Death: Heart Failure Remains: Buried, Elmira, NY Race: White Religion: Atheist Field: Author Famous for: Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer
Top 100 Influencial People #99 Field: Author

Samuel Langhorn Clemens (1835-1910), better known by pen name Mark Twain, was a famous and popular humorist, writter and lecturer. He also was steamboat pilot, gold prospector and journalist. His classics Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are widely read in schools across the U.S., as well as in many other western countries. Also popular are The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court and the non-fictional Life on the Mississippi.

Twain began as a writer of light humorous verse; he ended as a grim, almost profane chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and killing of men. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism in a way almost unrivaled in world literature.

Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech, and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature, built on American themes and language.

The name "Mark Twain" is a pun reference to a riverboat depth measurement meaning 2 fathoms. He also used the pseudonym "Sieur Louis de Conte" for his fictional autobiography of Joan of Arc.

In recent years, there have been attempts to ban the book from various libraries, because Twain's use of local color offends some people. Although Twain was against racism and imperialism far in front of public sentiment of his time, ironically some with only superficial familiarity of his work have condemned it as racist for its accurate depiction of the unpleasant language in common use in the United States in the 19th century.

In his later life Twain's family suppressed some of his work which was especially irreverent towards conventional religion; notably Letters from the Earth was not published until decades after Twain's death.