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The author, whose original name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in 1835. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River, where he spent a wonderful childhood. His father died when he was twelve, and he started an apprenticeship as a printer. In 1857, he decided to realize his dream which he had as a boy: to become a river-boat pilot. From that experience he took the name "Mark Twain". When the Civil War broke out, he spent a short time in the Confederate army. Soon after he became a journalist. While he worked for a local newspaper in Nevada, he began to write literature. His sketch "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country" from 1867 made him famous. So, by 1870, he was known as a successful writer and it was in this year that he married. He bought a house in Hartford, Connecticut, where he wrote his most famous works, including "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in 1884 / 85.
However, as he became more famous, his pessimism and despair of human nature grew. His writing also became more critical of society and politics. After his daughters and his wife had both died, he himself finally died in Connecticut in 1910, at the age of seventy-five.
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