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
Mariposa (fictional town) Mariposa (fictional town) Mariposa is a fictional Canadian town created by Stephen Leacock as the setting for a series of short stories. They were originally commissioned by "The Montreal Star" newspaper and later collected and published in one volume as "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town". Since then, many attempts have been made to expand the canon, present it in a different form or make reference to it. Although the author publicly denied it, the town is closely modelled on the town of Orillia, Ontario and its inhabitants. He named it after one or more nearby communities, which had borne