There are some writers that you know of even if you aren’t an avid reader yourself, such as Steven King, Roald Dahl, J.R.R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, and Mark Twain. Twain is many things: a witty humorist, an entrepreneur, at one point a lecturer, and of course, a writer. Twain’s most popular works, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, are considered classics in the field of literature. Many people, including famed poet William Faulkner and maybe even your English teacher, have considered him “the father of American literature”. It’s clear, both in his praise and popularity, that Mark Twain is one of the most well-respected American writers of all time.

            But how did he start, you may ask? Well, he was born on November 30, 1835, with the name Samuel Clemens, and he was the sixth children of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Jane was a fun-loving homemaker that would tell stories to her children, give remedies to Sam when he was in poor health for the first ten years of his life, and is said to have inspired his known sense of humor. In contrast, Sam’s father, John Marshall, was an incredibly serious man that worked many jobs but never achieving the amount of wealth he wanted, and it has been said that Samuel never saw him smile. It’s more than likely, however, that his sadness came from the amount of business failures he had, putting his family into many financial situations, to the point where they had to move to Hannibal when Sam was only four, where they luckily had many more opportunities. Even so, childhood for Young Sam was a rough one, due to many of his siblings being killed by diseases before his life in Hannibal. Even in Hannibal, violence was constant, like when he found a corpse in his father’s office. In 1847, his father had died of pneumonia, and shortly after he worked for a printer at Joseph P. Ament’s Missouri Courier.

            Around 1853, Samuel left Hannibal at the age of 17 and tried out many occupations all around the world. He became a newspaper writer in New York City, a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, which was unfortunately cut short due to the Civil War, and even a gold and silver prospector. When that failed, he went to work for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, where he used his pen name, Mark Twain, for the first time. Twain received a lot of praise for his style of writing, with many calling him funny, witty, and rarely, if ever, pretentious. He had his big break in 1865 when one of his tales, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,", was published in newspapers all across the country. He gained a lot of fame for this story, making him a sudden celebrity. In 1867, he took a trip to Europe and the Holy Land, where he wrote travel letters in his signature humorous and tongue-in-cheek fashion. These letters were met with so much audience praise that they were later reworked into his very first book, The Innocents Abroad, in 1869, which became an absolute success and a nationwide bestseller.

            During his trip, he also met a young man Charles Langdon, his future brother-in-law, who invited Twain to dine with him in New York with his family. At this dinner, he met Charles’s sister, Oliva, and Twain fell in love with her instantly. They married in February 1870, and thanks to Oliva’s father, Twain got a job as a writer at the Buffalo Express. During his time there, in 1872, he wrote a humorous book based on Mark’s frontier adventures called Roughing It, which sold well. Later, he teamed up with a friend of his, Charles Dudley Warner, to work on a satire on the political and financial corruption in the US. It was called The Glided Age, and when it was released in 1873, it was received with praise. More importantly, it was Twain’s first experience with writing a novel, and the experience was pleasant enough for Twain to start writing possibly his most well-known work, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

            Between 1874 and 1891, Mark Twain, Olivia, and his three daughters moved in a house in Hartford. At this time, he was doing well in terms of popularity and finance, as his books have been selling really well. However, it wasn’t until 1876 where he finally published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, an episodic adventure story about a boy growing up in the Mississippi River that became to be considered one of his best works and a literary classic. The book and its success showed that Twain could write a story that could entertain kids and adults alike. Kids could get sucked into Sawyer’s antics, and adults would connect to the childlike adventures by remembering what is was like being a young kid themselves. Afterwards, while staying with his in-laws, he would began writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, another one of Mark Twain’s most iconic works. However, it would take years for him to finally finish it, as he would put it aside to work on other projects, like The Prince and the Pauper published in 1881. However, after starting his own publishing company, the Charles L. Webster Company, named after Twain’s nephew and business agent, he finally released Huckleberry Finn through that company in 1884.

            As successful as his life was at this time, releasing a string of well acclaimed and profitable books, making him very rich and famous, it was about to go downhill. His publishing company was failing, and some of his bad investments caused him to go in debt. Twain and his family moved to Europe from Hartford in order to live more cheaply, but debts continued to rise. Twain sense of humor was still intact in his writing during this time, but even that became an issue. Not only does he have to deal with financial troubles, but he also has to keep his persona of being a “humorist” while in a string of issues. In order to combat this image, he released several novels with a more serious tone, and he kept doing so even when it wasn’t working because it was an antidote to his grief, since many of his family members, like his daughter Susy, were dying of illnesses. Luckily, he traveled all around the world giving lectures and speeches for many years and was able to make his money back.

            Jumping to his later years, Twain’s work became a lot more serious, only retaining some of his wit. His work focused on corruption, greed, cruelty, and violence, and they were incredibly sarcastic and harsh. Most of them were focused on the government, and these types of writings threated his livelihood once again, as because of his political stance, many newspaper companies never published some of his newer works. If that wasn’t bad enough for Twain, his wife was horribly ill for the last few years of her life, before finally dying on June 5, 1904. Twain’s book, Eve’s Diary, published in 1906, conveys his sense of personal loss after her death. His daughter Jean also died on December 24, 1909. Twain spent the rest of his last few years bitter and lonely, but writing his autobiography gave him some solace and pleasure. The energizing and humorous way he wrote it did not seem like the way a cynical man would normally write.

            Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, died on April 21 at the age of 74. He was buried at Elmira, New York, near his wife and the four out of five children of his that died before him. The last piece of writing he ever did was a short sketch called Etiquette for the Afterlife: Advice to Paine, which was first published in its entirety in 1995. Even at his sad last few years, this sketch proved that Twain hadn’t lost his sense of humor, but it also showed that his mind was on his death and the life after. Even with all his troubles, Twain was applauded as a master of his craft in his time and even to this day. Thanks to his hard work, the tales of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and many others, will most likely live on for eternity.