The Autobiography of Mark Twain.

 (1835–1910)

Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote under the pen name Mark Twain and went on to pen several novels, including two major classics of American literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was also a riverboat pilot, journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur and inventor. Twain died on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut.

When he was 4 years old, his family moved to nearby Hannibal, a port town on the Mississippi River of 1,000 people.Sam Clemens lived in Hannibal from age 4 to age 17.

Steamboats arrived there three times a day, tooting their whistles; circuses, street shows and revivalists paid visits; a decent library was available; and tradesmen such as blacksmiths and tanners practiced their entertaining crafts for all to see. However, violence was common in the place, and young Sam witnessed much death: When he was 10 years old, he watched a slave die after a white overseer struck him with a piece of iron.

Clemens, age 15

Sam kept up his schooling until he was about 12 years old, when his father died unexpectedly and the family started needing a source of income. He found employment as an apprentice printer at the Hannibal Courier, which paid him with a miserable ration of food. In 1851, at 15, he got a job as a printer and occasional writer and editor at the Hannibal Western Union, a little newspaper owned by his brother, Orion.

Clemens, age 15

Then, in 1857, 21-year-old Clemens fulfilled a dream: He began learning the art of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. He became a licensed pilot by 1859 and loved his career. It was exciting, well-paying and high-status. However, his service was cut short in 1861 by the outbreak of the Civil War, which stopped most civilian traffic on the river.

As the Civil War began, the people of Missouri angrily split between support for the Union and the Confederacy. Clemens opted for the latter, joining the Confederate Army in June 1861 but serving for only a couple of weeks until his volunteer unit disbanded.Where, he wondered then, would he find his future? What venue would bring him both excitement and cash? His answer: the great American West…

In July 1861, Twain climbed onboard a stagecoach and headed for Nevada and California, where he would live for the next five years. At first, he prospected for silver and gold, convinced that he would become the savior of his struggling family and the sharpest-dressed man in Virginia City and San Francisco. But nothing panned out, and by the middle of 1862, he was flat broke and in need of a regular job.

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society”

Mark Twain.

Twain became one of the best-known storytellers in the West. He possessed a distinctive narrative style (friendly, funny, irreverent, often satirical).

He got a big break in 1865, when one of his tales about life in a mining camp, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog," was printed in newspapers and magazines around the country. (the story later appeared under various titles).

His next step up the ladder of success came in 1867, when he took a five-month sea cruise in the Mediterranean, writing humorously about the sights for American newspapers with an eye toward getting a book out of the trip. And so it came to pass that in 1869 The Innocents Abroad was published, and it became a bestseller.

On February 2nd 1870, he married 24-year-old Olivia (Livy) Langdon, the daughter of a rich New York coal merchant. Writing to a friend shortly after his wedding, "I have ... the only sweetheart I have ever loved ... she is the best girl, and the sweetest, and gentlest, and the daintiest, and she is the most perfect gem of womankind.“Twain hoped that she would "reform" him, a mere humorist, from his rustic ways. The couple settled in Buffalo and later had four children.

At 34, this handsome, red-haired, affable, smart, egocentric and ambitious journalist and traveler had become one of the most popular and famous writers in America.In 1885, he triumphed as a book publisher by issuing the bestselling memoirs of former President Ulysses S. Grant, who had just died. He lavished many hours on this and other business and was certain that his efforts would be rewarded with enormous wealth, but he never achieved the success he expected. His publishing house eventually went bankrupt.

Some of these later works have enduring merit, and his unfinished work The Chronicle of Young Satan has fervent admirers today.

In 1889, Twain published A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a science-fiction/historical novel about ancient England. His next major work, in 1894, was The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, a somber novel that some observers described as "bitter." He also wrote short stories, essays and several other books, including a study of Joan of Arc.

Mark Twain's last 15 years were filled with public honors, including degrees from Oxford and Yale. Probably the most famous American of the late 19th century, he was much photographed and applauded wherever he went. Indeed, he was one of the most prominent celebrities in the world, traveling widely overseas, including a successful round-the-world lecture tour in 1895-'96, undertaken to pay off his debts.

On June 5th 1904, while Twain traveled, his wife died after a long illness. "The full nature of his feelings toward her is puzzling," writes scholar R. Kent Rasmussen. "If he treasured Livy's comradeship as much as he often said, why did he spend so much time away from her?" But absent or not, throughout 34 years of marriage, Twain had indeed loved his wife. "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden" he wrote in tribute to her.

Olivia Langdon Clemens 1845-1904

Twain became somewhat bitter in his later years. Even projecting to be friendly in public, in private he demonstrated a stunning insensivity to friends and loved ones.

He was unable to finish most of his projects. He had volcanic rages and nasty bouts of paranoia, and he experienced depression, which he tried to fight by smoking cigars, reading in bed and playing endless hours of billiards and cards.Samuel Clemens died on April 21st, 1910, at the age of 74, at his country home in Redding, Connecticut. He was buried in Elmira, New York.

MesmerismThe term comes from Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). An Austrian doctor who gave his name to what he considered a system of curing illness. He believed that every part of the universe was connected by magnetic fluid and that illness occurred when the balance of the fluid in a person’s body was disturbed.

Mesmer would pass his hands on the patient’s body and would redirect the fluid in order to cure the patient.

After convulsions or hypnotic trances, Mesmer’s patients reported themselves restored to health.At first, Mesmer experienced success when he introduced his “system” in Paris in 1778.King Louis XVI who was skeptical, appointed a scientific commission to investigate Mesmer’s claims.Benjamin Franklin and other commission members declared Mesmer a fraud.

Mesmerism

Mesmerism

Although Mesmer’s theory was discredited, interest in the hypnotic trance state became popular during the 19th century. Mesmerism became a form of entertainment. The kind of travelling performance that caught Mark Twain’s attention when he was young.

fling-flungconspicuousanticgazeto be gnawedscamperbilenodflee-fledmud cats