No author in American literature is better known or more loved than Samuel Langhorne Clemens.  Born in Missouri in 1835, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River and used the pen name of "Mark Twain". The two novels brought him his greatest fame:  Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  Another book, Life on the Mississippi, told of his adventures on the riverboats of that period.

     It was during the Civil War that Mark Twain's life as a writer started. At that time he was working as a newspaperman in Nevada and California. His short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Cadaver's County", was an immediate success and his new life began.

     In 1870, Mark Twain married Olivia kingdom.  He had fallen in love with her picture even before he met her. His wife had a great influence to Twain's later books.

     Mark Twain was also a very successful lecturer. His travels around the country giving talks on different kinds of subjects helped make him famous and increased the sale of him books.

     Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are considered Twain's best works. They are marked by humor and satire and provide his readers with an excellent picture of his time. His last book was completed in 1909, one year before his death. He was then 74 years old.