Mark Twain Biography

Fast Facts

• Left school to become a printer's apprentice at the age of 13 and joined his brother's newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant, discovering his love of writing in the process, at the age of 15
• Spent much of his early childhood confined to his house due to health issues
• Became a licensed river pilot in 1858 in St․ Louis, where he earned the pseudonym "Mark Twain," which is a boating term used to establish the depth of the river
• Quote: "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry․"
• Quote: "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter․"
• Began working as a newspaper reporter in 1861 after the Civil War put a stop to the river trade and published his first story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County," in the New York Saturday Press in 1865
• Best known as an author and humorist who wrote the novels "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn․"
• Reached such a level of fame in the U․S․ that fan letters addressed only to "Mark Twain, God knows where" would actually be delivered to him, and those addressed to "Mark Twain, c/o President Roosevelt" were passed on to him by the White House
• On both the night of his birth and the night of his death, Haley's Comet was visible in the sky
• Before he began using the pen name Mark Twain, he published humorous stories in the Keokuk Post under the name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass