1、About Mark Twain Mark Twain was born in Florida and spent his boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, along the Mississippi River. Three of his most famous books describe people on this great river. They are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi. Indeed,
2、 this author loved the river so much that even his pen name is about the river. “Twain” is an old word for “two”. So, to “mark twain” is to say that the water is two fathoms deep. A fathom is equal to six feet or 1.83 metres. Twain left school at the age of twelve to look for work. Over the next two
3、 decades he was a printer, a riverboat pilot , a soldier, a gold miner, a businessman and a newspaper reporter. In 1865, he published The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County which was about a jumping frog contest. His writing became famous for its description of common people and the way the
4、y walked, but especially for his humour. He became rich from the many novels, short stories and travel journals he wrote and was very popular at public readings. Yale and Oxford Universities honoured him for his writing. However, the later part of his life was heavily overshadowed by several misfort
5、unes. He was bankrupted by some ill-advised investments in 1884 and the money from much of his later work were needed to pay off his debts. One of his daughters died in 1896, his wife in 1904, and another daughter in 1909. The last years of his life were filled with sad events, loneliness and the loss of much money. His writing lost most of its humour and became sad like him. He died in Redding, Connecticut, on 21st April, 1910 aged 75. Yet he is still one of the most popular writers in the world today.
