Mark Twain’s Personal Story 1835-1910. Early Years 1835-1853 Samuel Clemens had a favorite word whenever he described his boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri:

Mark Twain’s Personal Story

1835-1910

Early Years 1835-1853

Samuel Clemens had a favorite word whenever he described his boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri: drowsing.

Clemens would later call these his “Tom Sawyer days,” a time when he himself pulled many of the pranks he later attributed to his young hero.

He lived there from the age of four to fifteen, and he relived those days for the rest of his life in books like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi.

Life on the Missippi

1857-1860“When I was a boy,” said

Clemens in the Atlantic Monthly, “there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.”

Riverboat Pilot

Clemens became one of the best pilots on the Mississippi River. "Your pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings." This quote is from his book "Life on the Mississippi".

1860 - 1864

Twain went West to avoid the brewing Civil War. Clemen’s took his first writing job as reporter at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise with his brother, Orion.

Life as a Journalist 1865-1866

Hawaii!

The topic of his “lecture” was Hawaii, or the Sandwich Islands, where he had spent nearly 6 months. For that first lecture—or stand-up comedy show—he was very nervous, so he made up a poster with these words along the bottom: “Doors open at 7:30, the trouble will begin at 8.” It was the beginning of a lifelong success for the performer known as Mark Twain.

Samuel Clemens spent nearly twenty years in the strange riverboat of a house he built in Hartford, Connecticut.

Twain AbroadDue to money problems,

Twain lived in Europe from 1891-1901, but this was neither his first nor last trip abroad.

From the age of 17 to the last few weeks of his life he loved to travel. He crisscrossed the Atlantic more than a dozen times and also saw Turkey, Palestine, Hawaii, Australia, India, and South Africa.

After getting out of Debt . . .

1901-1908he had become America’s most

popular celebrity. He was invited to attend ship launchings, anniversary gatherings, political conventions, and countless dinners. Reporters hounded him for new quips from the famous humorist. To enhance his image, he took to wearing white suits and loved to take strolls down the street.

Years of Sorrow

Son Langdon died at age 19 months in 1872

Twain’s mother Jean died in 1890

Twain with daughters Clara

and Susie-

Susie died in 1896

Brother Orion died in

1897

Twain’s wife Olivia died in

1904

His sister died in 1904. Twain outlived all six of his siblings.

His Daughter Jean died in 1909

Death of his wife, Olivia in 1904

A letter: “Last night at 9:20, I entered Mrs. Clemens room to say the usual goodnight-and she was dead-tho’ no one knew it. She had been cheerfully talking, a moment before. She was sitting up in bed—she had not lain down for months—and Katie and the nurse were supporting her.”

“They supposed she had fainted, and they where holding the oxygen pipe to her mouth, expecting to revive her. I bent over her and looked in her face, and I think I spoke—I was surprised and troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood, and our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day!—”

Mark Twain, Letter to W.D. Howells, 1904

Another letter . . .

“An hour ago, the best heart that ever beat for me and mine went silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands. We are now trying to make plans—we: We who have never made a plan before, nor ever needed to.”

“If she could speak to us she would make it all simple and easy with a word, and our perplexities would vanish away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us where to go and what to do: but she was not suspecting, neither were we. She was all our riches and she is gone: she was our breath, she was our life, and now we are nothing.—”

Mark Twain, Letter to R. W. Gilder, 1904

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