Mark Twain Mark Twain Mark Twain (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) and its sequel, the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel". Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn". He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on
Mark Twain that he would "go out with it" as well; he died the day after the comet returned. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist this country has produced", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, the sixth of seven children born to Jane ("née" Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky, and John Marshall Clemens (1798–1847), a native of Virginia. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri, and they were married in 1823. Twain was of Cornish, English, and Scots-Irish descent. Only