5 interesting facts about mark twain

Whether you’re a writer and want to see the place that inspired stories about the famous Huck Finn or you want to brush up on your Mark Twain trivia before visiting the famous writer’s hometown, we’ve got you covered with the best fun facts about Mark Twain.

Make The Most Of Your Trip To Hannibal

One of the most exciting ways to tour the hometown of one of the best writers in American history is to climb aboard one of our Mark Twain Riverboat tours to learn all about the author and this magical town. We have sightseeing tours up the Mississippi River and offer dinner cruises with a two-entree buffet-style meal to enjoy on the water.

Don’t forget to reach out to book your tour in advance to make sure we have space for you during your preferred visit.

We’ll give you a peek into Twain’s childhood and share interesting facts about his career you may have never heard. Stick around to gather all our favorite fun facts about Mark Twain before your vacation to Hannibal.

1) What Is Mark Twain’s Real Name?

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 to parents John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens. It wouldn’t be for many, many years until Samuel would take up the pen name Mark Twain.

2) What Kind Of Education Did Mark Twain Have?

While his many literary masterpieces might lead you to assume Mark Twain is a college scholar, he actually didn’t receive much of a formal education as a young boy. One of the most interesting facts about Mark Twain is that he had to leave school to help support his family after the death of his father.

After Mark Twain dropped out of school, he began working at the Hannibal Journal, where his writing career would find its start. Mark Twain took it upon himself to become a self-educator because he had a fascination for learning but could no longer get his education from the schoolhouse. He wa

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), more widely known as Mark Twain, was a well known American writer born in Florida, Missouri. He worked mainly for newspapers and as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before he became a writer. He married in 1870, and raised his family in Hartford, Connecticut. In later life he invested and lost the money that his writing had made, and toured the world giving lectures that brought him enough money to pay his debt and recover his fortune.

Clemens was best known for his works in fiction, and especially for his use of humour. His first published story, in 1865, was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be Clemens' best work. This story of a white boy who helps a black man escape slavery in the southern United States is known for its humanity.

Clemens's style was usually informal and humorous. This made him different from many important 19th century writers whose books he disliked. For example, he greatly disliked Jane Austen's works, such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and famously remarked, "She makes me detest (hate) all her people, without reserve."

Actor Hal Holbrook plays Mark Twain on stage in a one-man show called Mark Twain Tonight.

Halley's Comet appeared in the sky during the year Twain was born and the year he died. This periodic comet comes back every 74 years, which is how long he lived.

Early life

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 12, 1835, to a Tennessee country merchant, John Marshall Clemens (August 11, 1798 – March 24, 1847), and Jane Lampton Clemens (June 18, 1803 – October 27, 1890).

Twain was the sixth of seven children. Only three of his siblings survived childhood: his brother Orion (July 17, 1825 – December 11, 1897); Henry, who died in a riverboat explosion (July 13, 1838 – June 21, 1858); and Pamela (Sept

1. As a baby, he wasn’t expected to live.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born two months prematurely on November 30, 1835, in tiny Florida, Missouri, and remained sickly and frail until he was 7 years old. Clemens was the sixth of seven children, only three of whom survived to adulthood. In 1839, Clemens’ father, John Marshall, a self-educated lawyer who ran a general store, moved his family to the town of Hannibal, Missouri, in search of better business opportunities. (Decades later, his son would set his popular novels “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in a fictionalized version of Hannibal.) John Marshall Clemens became a justice of the peace in Hannibal but struggled financially. When Samuel Clemens was 11, his 49-year-old father died of pneumonia.

2. Twain’s formal education was limited.

In 1848, the year after his father’s death, Clemens went to work full-time as an apprentice printer at a newspaper in Hannibal. In 1851, he moved over to a typesetting job at a local paper owned by his older brother, Orion, and eventually penned a handful of short, satirical items for the publication. In 1853, 17-year-old Clemens left Hannibal and spent the next several years living in places such as New York City, Philadelphia and Keokuk, Iowa, and working as a printer.

3. His career as a riverboat pilot was marred by tragedy.

In 1857, Clemens became an apprentice steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. The following year, while employed on a boat called the Pennsylvania, he got his younger brother, Henry, a job aboard the vessel. Samuel Clemens worked on the Pennsylvania until early June. Then, on June 13, disaster struck when the Pennsylvania, traveling near Memphis, experienced a deadly boiler explosion; among those who perished as a result was 19-year-old Henry.

Samuel Clemens was devastated by the incident but got his pilot’s license in 1859. He worked on steamboats until the outbreak of the American Civil Wa

American author and humorist (1835–1910)

For other uses, see Mark Twain (disambiguation).

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. The novelist Ernest Hemingway claimed that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."

Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens' newspap