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Biography of Mark Twain

April 25th, 2011 | admin

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, known and celebrated as “Mark Twain,” was born in Florida, on November 30; 1835. He was one of the most famous and has been likened as one of the most effective American writers this country has produced. He was not only an American writer but he was also a famous   journalist, and humorist.

His has such magic in his writing that he won a worldwide audience in such a short time period for his stories of youthful adventures. Twain enjoyed immense popularity. He was the person who introduced the concept of colloquial speech into American fiction.

 EARLY LIFE

John Marshall Clemens, Father of Mark Twain was a lawyer by profession .John Marshall Clemens shifted his household from James town to Florida. Florida was a small town, hardly a village of 20 houses located on Salt River. John established a small business there and after five months he blessed with a son, he named him Samuel, a family name, and added Langhorne, after an old Virginia friend of his father. He was sixth of seven and only three survived childhood. He was a very intelligent student but his schooling was brief and of a desultory kind and ended when Twain was just 11 when his father died of pneumonia. As they were not economically strong all of them have to contribute some in order to survive. His brother, Orion who was just ten year elder was already a printer by trade, and then in 1851 Mark Twain began working as typesetter and contributor of articles for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned by his brother Orion. At the age of 18 he left Hannibal and start working as a printer in Newyork city. On a voyage to New Orleans, he continues his career as a steamboat pilot as it was a rich occupation and his wage was set to be 0/month.

TRAVELS      

Twain and Orion travelled for more than two weeks across Rocky Mountains, visiting the Mormon community. Twain’s journey ended in the silver-mining, where he became a miner. But he failed as a miner and found work at a Virginia City newspaper. It was here that he first used his famous pen name “Mark Twain”. Twain also lecture in the United States and England.. In 1864 he moved to San Francisco where he continued working as a journalist. Here he met writers such as Artemus Ward and Dan DeQuille.As a writer he became famous after “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, was published. Between 1876 and 1884 he published several masterpieces.

Marriage and children      

Twain was married with Charles Langdon’s sister Olivia, Twain  fell  in love at first sight and a year later they were engaged and married in February 1870 in, New York. Olivia gave birth to four children one died with in few months after birth. Olivia died on 1904.

DEATH         

The death of his daughter JEAN bought him in sorrow. His heart was serious effected by the news of his daughter`s death and on April 21, 1910 he also died.

Clip from the Adventures of Mark Twain, an old claymation from 1984. Creepy, and this was a children’s show no less.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Mark Twain – Financial Troubles and Recovery

April 13th, 2011 | admin

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, was born in Florida on 30th November 1835. Out of seven children, he was the sixth one. He is not only known for his writing but also was a famous journalist and humor. He is known to produce magical writing which attracted worldwide audience and earned him as being a famous writer. Till today Twain is remember greatly and his work read by many.

Twain made a lot of money through his writings. Some of his famous workings were The Gilded Age, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Huckleberry Finn. A large portion of this money was lost due to bad investments. These investments were mainly due to investments in new technologies especially the Paige typesetting machine. It was an engineered mechanical device that was known to amaze the viewers when working. The problem with this device was that it was prone to a lot of breakdowns and so Mark Twain spent a huge sum of 0,000 on the device. Before the device was perfected, the device was replaced by Linotype in the market. Due to this, Mark Twain lost a huge portion of profits made by his books as well as large portion of money inherited from his wife Livy.

Mark Twain was very much fascinated with the science. He developed strong friendship with Nikola Tesla. He along with Tesla spent a lot of time in Tesla’s laboratory. Twain is said to have invented a new steam engine type, Kaolatype and infants bed clamp.

Another source of Twain’s financial trouble was publishing house. He also lost a huge portion of money through the publishing house. The publishing house enjoyed a lot of initial success by selling Ulysses S. Grant memories. Soon after this initial success, the publishing house broke and lost a lot of money. This was because of the idea that similar to selling memories of Ulysses S. Grant. It was thought that the public would now be interested and buy the biography of Pope Leo XIII. The idea was back fired and only less than hundreds copies sold.

To recover financially, Mark Twain started delivering lectures along with his writings. Along with his new friend he recovered financially. The lost lasting friendship in 1893 with Henry Huttleston Rogers, a financier, who was the Standard Oil’s principal. The recovery process began with Henry asking Twain to file for the bankruptcy. After this he asked Twain to his written works’ copyrights to his wife. This prevented the creditors from getting possession of his works. Then, Rogers went on to take charge of Twain’s money completely till all creditors were paid.

Finally, to completely pay off all creditors, Twain went on to deliver lectures worldwide, despite the fact that Twain was not under any legal obligations. In 1900, Twain then returned back to America after he had earned enough for paying off his financial debts.

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Mark Twain House and Museum

April 13th, 2011 | admin

The famous ‘Mark Twain House and Museum’ was where famous American humorist and author Mark twain lived between 1874 and 1891. Due to poor financial investments, Mark Twain along with his family moved to Europe in 1891. In 1900, when he returned to Connecticut, he lived in Redding. It was here when Mark twain died in 1910. Mark Twain house and museum is located in Hartford, Connecticut in USA.

Mark Twain home functioned as apartment building, library and school. In 1962, the house was declared as ‘National Historic Landmark’ and since 1974 it has been renovated and expanded to show the life and work of Mark twain.

The house has 19 rooms in total and the architectural style is Victorian Gothic. This house is also where Mark twain wrote his master pieces The Gilded Age, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Huckleberry Finn.

The design for Mark twain was done by the architect Edward Tuckerman potter. Constructed on 3.5 acres, the house had seven bedrooms and bathrooms, plant-filled conservatory and carriage house. The bay windows extended all the way up to form turrets that were then topped with porches. This allowed the Mark Twain and guests to have a view of pastoral area of the Hartford. The legend says that the Mark Twain House was designed to give a riverboat look as it had a typical steeped pitched roof, asymmetric bay window and Victorian Gothic architectural style.

The top floor had the billiards room as well as private study. This was where Twain wrote late at night. It is said that this room was off limits to everyone except for the house cleaners. This room was also used to entertain the male guests with liquor and cigar.

Mark Twain children also had a separate area to themselves. This area had a classroom, playroom and nursery. The daughters were tutored by Mrs. Clemens on second floor. Twain along with his children played in conservatory. It is said that Twain pretended to be an elephant.

Twain loved living in his house. One of the reasons was that many of his friend-authors lived in neighborhood namely Isabella Beechar Hooker and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In 1881, the home underwent renovation in 1881 when adjoining land strip was purchased. It is believed that he was inspired to renovate because of the success of ‘Adventures of Tom Sawyer’. During renovation, the kitchen was rebuilt and its size was doubled, the front hall was also enlarged and the driveway was also redrawn. Also, burglar alarm, heating and plumbing was installed. Twain was also a fan of new technologies and so he also installed early telephone in entrance hall.

After returning from Europe and death of daughter Suzy, the house was sold to Richard M.Bissell in 1903. After this it was again sold in 1922 and 1929. In 1955 till 1974, the restoration process if house began. It was opened as museum in 1960s. As of today, Mark Twain House and Museum attracts lot of tourists. It is said that five million dollars are generated in tourism. Currently, the house is said to be facing financial difficulties.

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Do You Know: Mark Twain Interesting Facts

April 13th, 2011 | admin

Mark Twain, a famous American writer and humorist, wrote many popular novels including the classic ‘Huckleberry Finn’ which earned him great respect. Mark Twain was born in Florida in 1835. His work earned him word wide respect in a short period of time. Till today, Mark Twain remains a popular figure throughout the world; especially in America. He is said to have introduced the colloquial speech concept in American fiction.

There are numerous interesting facts about Mark Twain that most of us are unaware of. Here are some interesting facts about Mark Twain:

Mark Twain was born. 75 years later when the comment appeared again, Mark twain worked as a printer. During American Civil War Mark Twain also performed other jobs from time to time namely gold prospector, steamboat pilot and journalist during the period of Gold Rush in Nevada and San Francisco. Twain was also said to be a famous lecturer who was known for his art of storytelling and stage presence. Olivia was the wife of Twain for 34 years, after which she died. She gave Twain four children: Jean, Susy, Langdon and Clara Clemens. Twain adopted his pen name in 1863 in Nevada. This was the time that earned him fame now and in later life. He became a notable writer and earned his name as an individual famous writer.  Twain became famous quickly with just over thirty pieces of his writing that were published. He wrote about satire literature, short stories, historical fiction and non-fiction. He is the one responsible for writing classics namely Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and The Pauper and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain during his visit between Western US and Asia. The Classical Huckleberry Finn has the honor of being as the fifth frequently challenged book by American Library Association. He was vice president of American Anti-Imperialist League during his last few years of life. He became the vice president in 1901.

 

Mark Twain is considered as not only a famous American literature writer but also considered as a true hero. In his life, Mark Twain went through a vivid journey and is also known to help shape the country. Mark Twain remains with us even today.

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