“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”
– Notebook, 1885
Do you know Mark Twain? Do you know him really? He is a famous American author, of course, but did you know that he was an advocate for change? Did you know that he constantly expressed his views against slavery, racism, and animal cruelty? Did you know he loved cats and was rumored to have at least nineteen in his childhood home? Did you know he had psychic tendencies?
It may have been written in the stars that America would receive an author literary greats like William Faulkner would come to call “the Father of American Literature.” With Halley’s Comet soaring through the sky, Samuel Clemens was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Not long after his birth, Clemens started on the path to becoming a writer. Following the death of his father, at the mere age of eleven, Samuel Clemens quit school and began working for the Hannibal Journal as a printer’s apprentice. As a young man, Clemens certainly upheld the idea of the American dream; taking his right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to heart, Clemens journeyed through the states hoping to make a name for himself. He collected the soil of America in his shoes, walked through big cities like Philadelphia and New York City, wrote articles for the newspapers there, worked on the Mississippi River as a steamboat pilot, and traveled west to Nevada hoping to strike silver and get rich. His adventures through America had a profound affect on his writing career, shaping books such as Roughing It and even influencing the creation of the name that would join the great authors in the American canon.
During his time on the Mississippi River, Clemens founded the pen name that now sparks a sense of recognition in every student of American Literature; in ship lingo “mark twain” translates into smooth sailing, specifically meaning that the water is two fathoms or twelve feet deep. It was also during his time as a steamboat captain that Clemens aka Twain showed his psychic side by claiming to have a dream of his brother’s death before it happened.
Twain’s most known works followed the discovery of his famous pen name as his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), were published after his marriage to Olivia Langdon. During those years of writing his greatest books, Twain and his wife, Olivia, had three daughters Clara, Jean, and Susy. Despite having a period of financial stability and success following the publication of his most famous works, Twain became bankrupt after constantly investing in dead end inventions. However, Twain was not disheartened by his lack of cash and stuck to his true nature as an advocate for change and innovation; he continued to speak and write passionately about subjects such as slavery, racism, and animal cruelty. Though many call his works such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn racist for its use of derogatory language, Twain was very much an advocate for the abolition of slavery and openly spoke against racism.
Mark Twain’s psychic abilities appeared once more in 1909, a year before his death. He was rumored to tell people, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.” Eerily enough, Halley’s comet made an appearance when Twain died of a heart attack on the tenth of April, 1910.
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Links:
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/facts-about-mark-twain.html
http://childrensatheneum.blogspot.com/2010/04/50-facts-about-mark-twain.html