Clemens

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, better known by his nom-de-plume of "Mark Twain," was born in Missouri in 1835. He began life in a printing office, but engaged in a variety of pursuits, among them that of a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi. He also won popularity as a reporter for Californian papers, and as a humorous lecturer. In 1867 he published The Jumping Frog, and set out on a tour in the Old World, which he described in The Innocents Abroad. He married a lady of fortune, settled at Buffalo for some time as editor, and in 1884 established the publishing bouse of Webster and Co. at New York. Among his most successful books are Roughing It, Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, and The Prince and the Pauper. He has also attempted dramatic composition in The Gilded Age, a comedy of some merit. His only serious undertaking has been the compilation of General Grant's Memoirs. Mark Twain's writings have fostered the taste for the dry and somewhat monotonous humour, supposed to be a product of Western civilisation, but his literary ability has been rather cramped by the form in which it is expressed.