Mark Twain

EARLY LIFE 

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835  in Florida, a small town in Missouri.

Portrait by Mathew Brady, February 1871

Samuel was the sixth of seven children born to John Marshall Clemens, a native of Virginia who kept a general store and Jane (née Lampton), a native of Kentucky. 

His family moved to Hannibal, Montana a port town on the Mississippi when he was 4. 

John Marshall Clemens died of pleurisy when Samuel was 12. He was returning from being sworn in as the newly elected clerk of the surrogate clerk in the frozen rain. Samuel's father left many debts. 

Only three of Samuel's siblings survived childhood: Orion (1825–1897), Henry (1838–1858), and Pamela (1827–1904). His brother, Henry, was killed by an explosion on a Mississippi steamer.

After his father died Samuel was so full of remorse for his naughtiness during his father's lifetime that it worried his mother. 

As a little brat, Samuel once sold the skin of a raccoon to a local shop owner. He was annoyed at only getting 10 cents for it, so when he noticed the man throw the skin into the back of a shop, he crept in through the back window and retrieved it. Sam repeated this many times until the shop owner realized what was going on.

At the age of 10, Samuel nearly died of measles during an epidemic.

Samuel regularly won the school spelling prize, his best skill at school.

He never graduated from state school. "I have never let schooling interfere with my education," he later quipped. 

CAREER 

Clemens was apprenticed to a local printer at the age of 12. 

When Clemens' oldest brother, Orion, began publishing a newspaper the Hannibal Courier Samuel started contributing to it as a journeyman printer and occasional writer. 

Some of the liveliest and most controversial stories in Orion's paper came from the pen of his younger brother--usually when Orion was out of town. 

Samuel Clemens, age 15

Clemens left Hannibal at the age of 18 and worked as a printer in Cincinatti, St Louis, New York City and Philadelphia, joining the newly formed International Typographical Union.

Samuel was enchanted by life on River Mississippi as a child and steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $500, payable out of Clemens' first wages after graduating.

He was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi until 1861 when the Civil War halted steamboat travel on the river. The profession, Clemens later claimed, would have held him to the end of his days, recounting his experiences in his book Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Samuel Clemens enlisted in the Missouri militia in 1861 to fight in the war. However after two weeks he was invalided out suffering from fatigue.

In his short spell serving in the American Civil War, Clemens had a mule called Paintbrush.

Clemens escaped further contact with the war by going west in July of 1861 with his brother Orion who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada. The two traveled for two weeks across the Plains by stagecoach to the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. Twain spent ten months silver mining in the Humboldt Mountains in the far west between 1861-62. 

Clemens failed as a miner and walked 130 miles to Virginia City, Nevada, in order to successfully apply for a post working for the local newspaper there called the Territorial Enterprise. 

Clemens first used his pen name in Nevada City on February 3, 1863, when he wrote a humorous travel account entitled "Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music" and signed it "Mark Twain."

Twain spent two years as a reporter for the Virginia City Enterprise, in Nevada, before moving to San Francisco in 1864, still as a journalist.

Twain's first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," was published in 1865 in the New York weekly The Saturday Press, bringing him national attention. 

In the spring of 1866 Twain was commissioned by the Sacramento Union newspaper to travel to the Sandwich Islands (present day Hawaii) to write a series of letters reporting on his journey there.

The success of the letters and the personal encouragement of Colonel John McComb (publisher of San Francisco's Alta California newspaper) led Twain to try his hand at the lecture circuit. In 1866 he rented the Academy of Music charging a dollar a head admission. "Doors open at 7 o'clock," Twain wrote on the advertising poster. "The trouble to begin at 8 o'clock."

The first lecture was a wild success, and soon Twain was travelling up and down the California state, lecturing and entertaining packed houses.

In 1867 Twain formed with William Swinton the first ever newspaper syndicate, made up of 12 weekly journals. 

Twain in 1867

After marrying Olivia Langdon in 1870, Twain took up position as one of the editor's and part owner of the Buffalo Express in New York. 

Mark Twain patented under his real name Samuel Clemens an improvement in the "Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (ADSG) or "suspenders" in 1871.

More commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook he patented; a dried adhesive on the pages needed only to be moistened before use. "The only rational scrapbook the world has ever seen," Twain said. Over 25,000 were sold. However, in damp weather the pages stuck together and the company he put it in the hands of went under. 

Twain also invented and patented bed clamps to prevent children from losing their bed clothes.

In 1891 he invented a three-piece board game called Mark Twain's Memory Builder: A Game for Acquiring and Retaining All Sorts of Facts and Dates. It was a commercial disaster.

Despite making a fortune as a writer, Twain was declared a bankrupt in 1894 after losing over half a million dollars during a succession of failures in backing inventions.

When offered $5,000 stock in a new invention called a telephone by Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone Company, Mark Twain declined preferring to invest $250,000 in a page typesetting machine. The machine complicated rather than simplified the typesetting process and was never finished. Twain lost the bulk of his fortune in the venture.

Twain also lost a great deal of revenue on royalties from his books being plagiarized before he even had a chance to publish them himself.

At the age of 60 Twain set off on a grueling year-long worldwide lecture tour to settle his debts. By October 1900, Twain had earned enough to pay off all his creditors. 

Mark Twain photographed in 1908 via the Autochrome Lumiere process

WORKS 

Samuel Clements' pen name came from when he used to be a riverboat pilot in Hannibal, Montana on the Mississippi. It was common to have a crew member throw a line out from the front of the boat to measure the depth shouting "Mark Twain" if it was a safe depth. A Mark is the same as a Fathom (6 feet) and Twain means 2. He patented his name as a legal trademark.

Twain wrote large parts of his books in bed. "Working in bed must be a very dangerous occupation since so many deaths occur there," he once quipped.

Mark Twain published his first successful short story, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," in The New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. He wrote the story in a cabin located at Jackass Hill, Tuolumne County, California (see picture below).  

Photo by "Will Murray (Willscrlt).  http://willmurraymedia.com. 

His first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches, was an 1867 collection of short stories including "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog." It was Twain's first book and collected 27 stories that were previously published in magazines and newspapers. The book retailed at $1-25, but Twain was sold down the river and conned out of all his royalties ($1200) by his publisher, Charles H Webb.

Twain convinced Colonel McComb of the Alta California to pay for his passage aboard the steam packet Quaker City on an American excursion to Europe and the Middle East. The resulting humorous letters Twain produced for the newspaper reporting on the trip formed the basis of his first travel book, The Innocents Abroad (1869), a travelogue that pointedly failed to worship Old World arts and conventions. Sold by subscription, the book was a huge success and put its author in a spotlight he never willingly relinquished for the rest of his life.  It was one of the one of the best-selling travel books of all time.

Convinced a typewriter could produce 57 words a minute following a salesman's demo in 1874, Mark Twain became the first author to buy one — Remington's Sholes & Glidden Treadle Model. He later said he had stopped using the "curiosity-breeding little joker" as it provoked too many questions from excited recipients of his typed letters.

The first novel written on a typewriter is said to be Mark Twain's the Adventures Of Tom Sawyer (1876) which drew on his youth in Hannibal. Originally he intended it as a play, before changing the work into a novel. Originally a commercial failure the book ended up being the best selling of any of Twain's works during his lifetime.

Front piece of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876 1st edition.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written by Twain about the growing friendship between a runaway slave Jim and the narrator Huckleberry, the scrapes they get onto the river and the characters they meet. The real Huckleberry Finn, who was a sort of 19th century Forest Gump, was Tom Blankensap, a childhood friend, whose father was the town drunk. 

Published on February 18, 1885 in the US, at first The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was judged to be in appallingly bad taste due to its rustic dialect. The Concord Public Library, for instance, banned the book calling it "flippant, irreverent and trashy".

Today Huckleberry Finn is considered by some to be the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. Ernest Hemingway said: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mr Twain called Huck Finn... It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. Nothing comes before. There has been nothing as good since." 

Cover of the book «Adventures of Huckleberry Finn», 1884

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court published in 1889 was written by Twain about a time traveler from the America of his day who used his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. A parody of romantic notions of chivalry, it was inspired by a dream of the author in which Twain was a knight himself, severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armor.

Chapters from My Autobiography are twenty-five pieces of autobiographical work published by Mark Twain in the North American Review between September 7, 1906 and December 1907. Mark Twain declared that he regarded the right way to do an autobiography was talking about whatever interested him at the moment rather than writing it chronologically. From his bed, Twain dictated nearly 2,000 pages of the book to his stenographer over three years. Rather than following the standard form of an autobiography, they comprise a rambling collection of anecdotes and ruminations. 

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Before it turned grey, Twain had a mane of reddish brown, usually overlong grizzled hair. 

He had a roman nose, fair skin and a bushy brown mustache covering a mouth as delicate as a female's. 

The American writer liked to wear grey to match his hair and eyes. Otherwise he wore white in winter and in summer-all white. Twain was known for his white suits. 

Twain caricatured by Spy for Vanity Fair, 1908

His wife was embarrassed at Mark Twain's habit of calling on neighbors without a collar or necktie. 

Twain had a favorite scarlet robe that was awarded to him by Oxford University.

Twain had a slow drawling style of speech.

Twain was absent minded, hot tempered and prone to swearing. Indolent, and a procrastinator, he called himself lazy. However, he was also productive and competitive. 

Twain saw the joke in everything. Once, his friend William Dean Howells looked up at the clouds as the heavens opened and it began to rain. "Do you think it will stop?," he asked Twain." "It always has" replied the writer. 

He had a vulgar sense of humor- Twain kept a log of every filthy story he ever heard.

RELATIONSHIPS 

Twain first met Olivia "Livy" Langdon in December 1867, through her brother Charles. Their first date was attending a reading by Charles Dickens, in New York City. 

Livy was slender, girlish, honest, dignified, cheerful. An invalid at 16 through falling on the ice, she was bedridden for two years with a partial paralysis. Then after a visit from a quack, she was able to walk a couple of hundred yards unaided.

Olivia in 1869

Livy also suffered from what was probably tuberculosis myelitis or Pott's disease at a young age. She continued to have health problems throughout her life.

They were engaged in November 1868 and got married on February 2, 1870. The wedding was at Livy's father's house in Elmira, New York and the ceremony was performed by the Congregational ministers Joseph Twichell and Thomas K. Beecher

Livy came from a wealthy liberal family and on marrying her, Twain inherited a great deal of money. 

Their first child, Langdon, died after Twain unwisely took him for a drive on a raw cold morning and unaware to his father, the rug fell off his bare legs. 

Three daughters were born: Olivia Susan (called "Susy") in 1872, Clara in 1874, and Jean (called "Jane") in 1880. 

Their second child, Susy, died aged 24 in 1896 of spinal meningitis. 

Livy died from heart failure in June 1904. She was cremated, and her ashes are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira. Twain, who was devastated by her death, is interred beside her.

Jean died on Christmas Eve 1909 in a bathtub at her father's home after an apparent seizure.  

Twain survived his wife and all but one of his children.

In 1893, Twain was introduced to industrialist Henry H. Rogers, one of the principals of Standard Oil. Rogers reorganized Twain's tangled finances, and the two became close friends for the rest of their lives. 

Rogers' family became Twain's surrogate family and he was a frequent guest at the Rogers townhouse in New York City and summer home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. They were drinking and poker buddies.
                          

BELIEFS 

Twain was a Presbyterian, who was critical of organized religion and certain elements of Christianity through his later life.

Twain was an Universalist, believing all will be saved. He believed however that God is indifferent to man and on earth the devil has the upper influence.

A noted abolitionist and women's rights activist, Twain paid for the schooling of black people, including paying one man's tuition for Yale Law School.

The New York Times reported from Mark Twain's 70th birthday bash at Delmonico's, where the author said the secrets to old age were smoking cigars in bed and drinking barrels of cod liver oil.

PERSONAL LIFE 

One of Mark Twain's favorite meals was pan fried porterhouse steak with mushrooms and peas. 

Twain loved cats. Names of his cats included Stray Cat, Abner, Apollinaris, Motley, Fraevlein, Buffalo Bill, Soapy Sall, Cleveland, Sour Mash, Pestilence, Famine, Satan, Sin and Tammany.

HOBBIES 

His own reading tastes were facts and statistics rather than fiction or story books. 

Twain read Rudyard Kipling's Kim every year. "Kipling's name and Kipling's words...stir me more than do any other living man's", he wrote.

A visitor to the home of Mark Twain remarked upon the great number of books, many of which were littered about in piles all around the home. "You see" Twain explained "It is so difficult to borrow shelves."

Twain used to like to play old black gospel hymns on the piano. 

Twain had a fascination with science and scientific inquiry and developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla. They spent quite a bit of time together from time to time in Tesla's laboratory, among other places. 

Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, early 1894

In his Essays on 70th Birthday Mark Twain wrote. "I have never taken any exercise, except for sleeping and resting and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome."

Despite his claims of a lack of exercise the American writer was a keen walker. For years he went for a ten mile walk from Hartford to Talcott Tower every Saturday with his friend, Rev Twichell.

He once quipped "Golf is a good walk spoiled." 

Twain's favourite game was billiards. (smoked and potted) and he also liked bowling.

HOMES 

Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Montana when he was 4. Hannibal inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Twain moved into a substantial home in Buffalo, New York in February 1870 after marrying Olivia Langdon. After a couple of years he decided to move to Hartford, Connecticut, partly to be closer to his publisher.

The Twain family first rented a house at what was called Nook Farm in 1871 before buying land there and building a new house next door to Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Twain house in Hartford. By Makemake, 

In the 1870s and 1880s, the family summered at Quarry Farm in Elmira, the home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane. Susan had a study built apart from the main house so that Twain would have a quiet place in which to write. 

Twain wrote many of his classic novels during his 17 years in Hartford and over 20 summers at Quarry Farm.

During the winter of 1877-78 Mark Twain put up the first ever telephone wire used in a private house. 

Twain and his family closed down their expensive Hartford home in response to the dwindling income and moved to Europe in June 1891.

Twain, Livy, and their daughter Susy were all faced with health problems, and they believed that it would be of benefit to visit European baths. The family stayed mainly in France, Germany, and Italy until May 1895, with longer spells at Berlin (winter 1891/92), Florence (fall and winter 1892/93), and Paris (winters and springs 1893/94 and 1894/95). 

Twain returned four times to New York while his family was in Europe, due to his enduring business troubles. He took a room in September 1893 at $1.50 per day at The Players Club, which he had to keep until March 1894.

Twain lived in his later years at 14 West 10th Street in Manhattan.

Twain's final home was in Redding, Connecticut. He lived there from 1908 until his death in 1910. 

In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at his home in Redding,  and filmed him there. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

When the New York Journal ran a report about Mark Twain's death or immediate death, the writer realized they'd got him confused with his cousin, James Ross Clemens who had been ill but had since recovered. He sent a reply stating ending with "Report of my death greatly exaggerated".  

On December 20, 1909 Mark Twain announced that he was done writing books and giving lectures. "The fact is I am through with work," he said. He would die four months later. 

He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. Twain wrote on his deathbed in Memorandum, "Death the only immortal who treats us all alike whose pity and whose peace and whose refuse are for all-the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved."

Mark Twain was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet could be seen. He'd predicted in 1909 he would die when it was visible.

Twain's funeral was at the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York.