Mark Twain

(1835-1910)

成员：彭园 雷婷婷 陈惠玲 张攀 石柳

Early Life

Travels

Marriage and Children

Later Life

Works and Style

Mark Twain (1835 -1910)

◆ Mark Twain was a great American writer, and he was also a famous speaker.

◆Samuel Langhorne Clemens 塞缪尔•朗赫恩•克莱门斯 (Mark Twain) was born in Florida and he was not a healthy baby. In fact, he was not expected to live through the first winter. But with his mother's tender care, he managed to survive. As a boy, he caused much trouble for his parents. He used to play jokes on all of his friends and neighbors. He didn't like to go to school, and he constantly ran away from home.

Early life

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835, to a Tennessee country merchant

When Twain was four, his mother died, the family moved to Hannibal, Missouri

At that time, Missouri was a slave state, and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing.

when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia(肺炎 )

The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal

When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City.

At 22, Twain returned to Missouri.

He joined the union and educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider sources of information than he would have at a conventional ( 一般的 ) school.

until the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was curtailed.

He worked as a river pilot

Twain and his brother traveled for more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake Cityalong the way.

Travels

Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, where he became a miner.

Twain failed as a miner and found work at a Virginia City newspaper, Here he first used his famous pen name.

During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters, which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad （傻子出国记） in 1869.

Marriage and children

Charles Langdon showed a picture of his sister, Olivia, to Twain; Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight. They got married in February 1870 .They had four children, but the only son was died at 19 months.The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904.

Later Life

Twain passed through a period of deep depression, which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened his gloom. On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly.

Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Grave of Mark Twain Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, NY

Twain’s greatest fame and his importance in American literature rest largely on his two best known novels,

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 《汤姆 ·索亚历险记 》

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 《哈克费恩历险记 》

major works

The Innocents Abroad 《傻子国外旅行记》

Pudd'nhead Wilson 《傻瓜维尔逊》The Prince and the Pauper 《王子与贫

民》A Connecticut Yankee in King

Arthur’s Court 《 在亚瑟王朝的美国佬》 American Claimant 《美国申请人》

Other works

StyleHis earlier works are light,

humorous, optimistic.His later works become darker

and more obscure, showing his discontent and disappointment toward the social reality. His last works show his acute pessimism, despair, skepticism determinism.

When he died on April 21, 1910, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.” By then, it had been a long time since he ceased to be a private citizen. He had become Mark Twain, a proud possession of the American nation.