Mark Twain - short biography and literary slide show.

1. MARK TWAIN
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
1835-1910

2. MARK TWAIN WAS…
• He was an American author and
humorist.
• He was called the “greatest American
humorist of his age”.
• William Faulkner called him “the father
of American literature”.
• His real name was Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, his pen name was Mark
Twain.

3. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• He was born November 20, 1835 and
died April 21, 1910.
• He died of a heart attack shortly after a
visit by Halley’s Comet. He was born
when it passed by in 1835 and
predicted that he would die when it
returned.
• Halley’s Comet is visible to earth every
75-76 years.
• He was the sixth of seven children!

4. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• Twain grew up in Hannibal,
Missouri (which was the influence
on the town of “St. Petersburg”).
• Missouri was a slave state, and so
he was familiar with the
institution of slavery (explored in
his writings).
• One of his jobs included being a
riverboat pilot on the Mississippi
River.

5. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• At the start of the American Civil
War (1861-1865), he enlisted in
a Confederate local unit. The
confederates were the slave
states (especially the southern
states) trying to break away from
the Union and create the
Confederate States of America.

6. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• He married Olivia Langdon in
February 1870. They had one
son (Langdon who died of
diphtheria at 19 months) and
three daughters (Susy, Clara,
and Jean).
• Through Olivia, he met
abolitionists, socialists, atheists,
and women’s’ rights activities.
• His oldest and favorite
daughter, Susy, died of spinal
meningitis at the age of 24. He
refused to move back to
Hartford after she died.

7. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• He was neighbors with Harriet Beecher
Stowe (author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” )
while living in Hartford Connecticut
(where he wrote his most famous
novels).

8. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• He was fascinated with science and
scientific inquiry. He was close friends
with Nikola Tesla, and they spent a lot
of time together in Tesla’s laboratory.
• Tesla was a famous inventor, electrical
and mechanical engineer, and futurist.

9. ABOUT MARK TWAIN
• He wrote “The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer”.
• Its sequel was “The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn” (considered “the
Great American Novel”).
• He wrote both books when he lived in
Hartford, Connecticut

10. MARK TWAIN’S NOVELS
• The “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” was
based on his youth. Tom Sawyer was a
mix of Twain and his two friends, John
Briggs and Will Bowen.
• The book introduced Huckleberry Finn,
based on Twain’s friend Tom
Blankenship.

11. MARK TWAIN’S NOVELS
• “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was
his most popular book, and is read in
many schools in the United States.
• It is more serious than “The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer” . It is about a young boy’s
belief in the right thing to do though
most believed that it was wrong, and was
a criticism of slavery.
• Twain was an adamant supporter of
abolition and emancipation (of slaves).