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 at the Territorial Enterprise the paper, which he accepted. It was during this period, on February 3, 1863, that Clemens first used his famous pen name, signing a letter complaining about a lavish party that kept him "awake for forty-eight hours" with "yours dreamily, MARK TWAIN". Twain moved to San Francisco in 1864, but in 1865 got a correspondence job with the "Territorial Enterprise" to help cope with his financial problems. From February 1865 until March 1866 when Twain left for Hawaii, he composed five or six "San Francisco Letters" to the "Enterprise". Each letter consisted of about 2,000 words and Twain was paid