Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)
Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇺🇸 United States • 13 views

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) 🇺🇸

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) (Known as "The Father of American Literature / The Sage of Hannibal")
American Humorist, Novelist, Travel Writer, Lecturer, Mississippi River Pilot
Born 30 November 1835 🇺🇸 Florida (Missouri), United States
Passed Away 21 April 1910 Redding (Connecticut), United States
Lifespan 74 years old
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Notice / Correction
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other. All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. (Ernest Hemingway)."

Archival Overview

America's greatest humorist and storyteller dubbed by Ernest Hemingway the source of 'all modern American literature', whose Adventures of Huckleberry Finn used vernacular dialect and moral irony to deliver a devastating critique of racism.

Biographical Record

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), born on the day Halley's Comet appeared, grew up in the Mississippi River port town of Hannibal, Missouri. Working as a riverboat pilot, he adopted his pen name Mark Twain from the boatman's cry meaning 'two fathoms deep' (safe water).

After gold prospecting in Nevada and achieving fame with his 1865 tall tale The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Twain conquered the world with his travel satire The Innocents Abroad. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and his magnum opus Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Twain used authentic vernacular American dialect. Huck's moral decision to help the runaway slave Jim escape ('All right, then, I'll go to hell!') struck a fatal literary blow against racial hypocrisy. True to his own prediction, Twain died on 21 April 1910, the day after Halley's Comet returned.

Key Life Milestones

10 December 1884 CE

Publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Published his masterpiece in London and New York, founding modern American literature through vernacular voice.

21 April 1910 CE

Passing with the Return of Halley's Comet

Passed away as Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth, fulfilling his own famous lifelong prophecy.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Woodlawn Cemetery (Langdon Family Plot, Elmira)
Redding (Connecticut), United States
GPS: 42.1103, -76.8267
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