Mark Twain马克吐温的英文介绍

Mark Twain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see

Mark Twain (disambiguation)

.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain, detail of photo by

Mathew Brady

,

February 7, 1871

Born

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

November 30, 1835

Florida, Missouri

, U.S.

Died

April 21, 1910 (aged 74)

Redding, Connecticut

, U.S.

Pen name

Mark Twain

Occupation

Writer

,

lecturer

Nationality

American

Notable

work(s)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

,

The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Spouse(s)

Olivia Langdon Clemens

(m. 1870

–

1904)

Children

Langdon,

Susy

,

Clara

,

Jean

Signature

Samuel L. Clemens stamp, 1940

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

(November 30, 1835

–

April 21, 1910),

[1]

better known by his

pen

name

Mark Twain

, was an American author and

humorist

. He wrote

The Adventures of Tom

Sawyer

(1876) and its

sequel

,

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(1885),

[2]

the latter often called

Great American Novel

.

Twain grew up in

Hannibal, Missouri

, which provided the setting for

Huckleberry Finn

and

Tom

Sawyer

. After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to

the newspaper of his older brother Orion. He later became a riverboat pilot on the

Mississippi

River

before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his singular lack of

success at mining, turning to journalism for the

Virginia City

Territorial Enterprise

.

[3]

In 1865, his

humorous story,

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

,

story he heard at

Angels Hotel

in

Angels Camp

California where he had spent some time as a miner.

The short story brought international attention, and was even translated into classic Greek.

[4]

His wit

and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend

to

presidents

, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures

that lost a great deal of money, notably the

Paige Compositor

, which failed because of its

complexity and imprecision. In the wake of these financial setbacks, he filed for protection from his

creditors via bankruptcy, and with the help of

Henry Huttleston Rogers

eventually overcame his

financial troubles. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he had no legal

responsibility to do so.

Twain was born shortly after a visit by

Halley's Comet

, and he predicted that he would

it,

American humorist of his age,

[5]

and

William Faulkner

called Twain

American

literature

.

[6]

Contents

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1 Early life

2 Travels

3 Marriage and children

4 Love of science and technology

5 Financial troubles

6 Speaking engagements

7 Later life and death

8 Writing

8.1 Overview

8.2 Early journalism and travelogues

8.3

Tom Sawyer

and

Huckleberry Finn

8.4 Later writing

9 Views

9.1 Anti- imperialist

9.2 Civil rights

9.3 Labor

9.4 Vivisection

9.5 Religion

10 Pen names

11 Legacy

?

?

?

?

?

?

12 Depictions

13 Bibliography

14 See also

15 References

16 Further reading

17 External links

Early life

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in

Florida, Missouri

, on November 30, 1835. He was the son

of Jane (né

e Lampton; 1803

–

1890), a native of Kentucky, and

John Marshall

Clemens

(1798

–

1847), a Virginian by birth. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri and

were married several years later, in 1823.

[7][8]

He was the sixth of seven children, but only three of

his siblings survived childhood: his brother

Orion

(1825

–

1897), Henry, who died in a riverboat

explosion (1838

–

1858), and Pamela (1827

–

1904). His sister Margaret (1833

–

1839) died when he

was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832

–

1842) died three years later. Another brother, Pleasant

(1828

–

1829), died at six months.

[9]

Twain was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth

of

Halley's Comet

.

When he was four, Twain's family moved to

Hannibal, Missouri

,

[10]

a port town on the

Mississippi

River

that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in

The Adventures of Tom

Sawyer

and

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

.

[11]

Missouri was a

slave state

and young Twain

became familiar with the

institution of slavery

, a theme he would later explore in his writing. Twain's

father was an attorney and judge.

[12]

The

Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad

was organized in his

office in 1846. The railroad connected the second and third largest cities in the state and was the

westernmost United States railroad until the completion of the

Transcontinental Railroad

. It

delivered mail to and from the

Pony Express

.

[13]

Samuel Clemens, age 15

In 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of

p neumonia

.

[14]

The next year, he became a printer's

apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a

typesetter

and contributor of articles and humorous

sketches for the

Hannibal Journal

, a newspaper owned by his brother Orion. When he was 18, he

left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City,

Philadelphia

,

St. Louis

, and

Cincinnati

. He

joined the newly formed

International Typographical Union

, the printers

union

, and

educated

himself

in

public libraries

in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional

school.

[15]

Clemens came from St. Louis on the packet

Keokuk

in 1854

[16]

and lived in Muscatine

during part of the summer of 1855. The Muscatine newspaper published eight stories, which

amounted to almost 6,000 words.

[17]

On a voyage to

New Orleans

down the Mississippi,

steamboat

pilot Horace E. Bixby inspired Twain

to become a pilot himself. As Twain observed in

Life on the Mississippi

, the pilot surpassed a

steamboat's captain in prestige and authority; it was a rewarding occupation with wages set at $$250

per month.

[18]

A steamboat pilot needed to know the ever-changing river to be able to stop at the

hundreds of ports and wood-lots. Twain studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for more

than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859. This occupation gave him his

pen name, Mark Twain, from

training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on

June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on, the

Pennsylvania

, exploded. Twain had

foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier,

[19]

which inspired his interest in

parapsychology

; he

was an early member of the

Society for Psychical Research

.

[20]

Twain was guilt-stricken and held

himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and was a river pilot

until the

American Civil War

broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was

curtailed

.

At the start of the Civil War, Twain enlisted briefly in a Confederate local unit. He then left for

Nevada to work for his brother, a senior official in the Federal government.

[21]

Twain later wrote a

sketch,

The Private History of a Campaign That Failed

,

been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before disbanding their company.

[22]

Travels

Library of

Twain House

, with hand- stenciled paneling, fireplaces from India, embossed wallpapers, and

hand-carved mantel purchased in Scotland

Twain joined Orion, who in 1861 became secretary to

James W. Nye

, the governor of

Nevada

Territory

, and headed west. Twain and his brother traveled more than two weeks on

a

stagecoach

across the

Great Plains

and the

Rocky Mountains

, visiting the

Mormon

community

in

Salt Lake City

.

Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of

Virginia City, Nevada

, where he became

a

miner

on the

Comstock Lode

.

[22]

Twain failed as a miner and worked at a Virginia City newspaper,

the

Territorial Enterprise

.

[23]

Working under writer and friend

Dan DeQuille

, here he first used his

pen name. On February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous travel account

–

re:

Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music

with

[24]

His experiences in the West

inspired

Roughing It

and provided material for

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras

County

Twain moved to

San Francisco, California

in 1864, still as a journalist. He met writers such as

Bret

Harte

and

Artemus Ward

. The young poet

Ina Coolbrith

may have romanced him.

[25]

His first success as a writer came when his humorous

tall tale

,

Calaveras County,

The Saturday Press

, on November 18,

1865. It brought him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the

Sandwich

Islands

(present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the

Sacramento Union

. His travelogues were popular

and became the basis for his first lectures.

[26]

In 1867, a local newspaper funded a trip to the

Mediterranean

. During his tour of Europe and the

Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters, which were later compiled as

The

Innocents Abroad

in 1869. It was on this trip that he met his future brother- in-law, Charles Langdon.

Both were passengers aboard the

Quaker City

on their way to the Holy Land. Langdon showed a

picture of his sister

Olivia

to Twain; Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight.

Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in the secret

society

Scroll and Key

of

Yale University

in 1868.

[27]

Its devotion to

self-improvement, and charity

Marriage and children

Twain in 1867

Throughout 1868, Twain and

Olivia Langdon

corresponded but she rejected his first marriage

proposal. Two months later, they were engaged. In February 1870, Twain and Langdon were

married in

Elmira, New York

,

[26]

where he had courted her and overcome her father's initial

reluctance.

[28]

She came from a

abolitionists

,

women's rights

and

social equality

,

Harriet

Beecher Stowe

(his next-door neighbor in

Hartford, Connecticut

),

Frederick Douglass

, and the writer

and

utopian socialist

William Dean Howells

,

[29]

who became a long-time friend. The couple lived

in

Buffalo, New York

from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the

Buffalo Express

newspaper

and worked as an editor and writer. While living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of

diphtheria

at

19 months. They had three

daughters:

Susy

(1872

–

1896),

Clara

(1874

–

[30]

and

Jean

(1880

–

1909). The couple's

marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904. All of the Clemens family are buried in

Elmira's

Woodlawn Cemetery

.

Twain moved his family to

Hartford, Connecticut

, where starting in 1873 he arranged the building

of

a home

(local admirers saved it from demolition in 1927 and eventually turned it into a museum

focused on him). In the 1870s and 1880s, Twain and his family summered at

Quarry Farm

, the

home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane.

[31][32]

In 1874,

[31]

Susan had a study built apart from the main

house so that her brother-in-law would have a quiet place in which to write. Also, Twain smoked

pipes constantly, and Susan Crane did not wish him to do so in her house. During his seventeen

years in Hartford (1874

–

1891) and over twenty summers at Quarry Farm, Twain wrote many of his

classic novels, among them

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

(1876),

The Prince and the

Pauper

(1881),

Life on the Mississippi

(1883),

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(1885) and

A

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

(1889).

Twain made a second tour of Europe, described in the 1880 book

A Tramp Abroad

. His tour

included a stay in

Heidelberg

from May 6 until July 23, 1878, and a visit to London.

Love of science and technology

Twain in the lab of

Nikola Tesla

, early 1894

Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting

friendship with

Nikola Tesla

, and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.

Twain patented three inventions, including an

for Garments

suspenders

) and a history trivia game.

[33]

Most commercially successful

was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages only needed to be moistened before

use.

His book

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

features a

time traveler

from the

contemporary US, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology

to

Arthurian

England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of a

science

fiction

sub- genre,

alternate history

.

In 1909,

Thomas Edison

visited Twain at his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of

the footage was used in

The Prince and the Pauper

(1909), a two- reel short film.

Financial troubles

Twain caricatured by

Spy

for

Vanity Fair

, 1908

Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through

investments, mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the

Paige typesetting machine

. It

was a beautifully engineered mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but it was

prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $$300,000 (equal to $$8,100,000 in 2012 dollars

[34]

) on it between

1880 and 1894,

[35]

but before it could be perfected, it was made obsolete by the

Linotype

. He lost

not only the bulk of his book profits but also a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance.

[36]

Twain also lost money through his

publishing house

, which enjoyed initial success selling the

memoirs of

Ulysses S. Grant

but went broke soon after, losing money on a biography of

Pope Leo

XIII

; fewer than two hundred copies were sold.

[36]

Twain's writings and lectures, combined with the help of a new friend, enabled him to recover

financially.

[37]

In 1893, he began a 15-year-long friendship with financier

Henry Huttleston Rogers

, a

principal of

Standard Oil

. Rogers first made Twain file for

bankruptcy

. Then Rogers had Twain

transfer the

copyrights

on his written works to his wife, Olivia, to prevent creditors from gaining

possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all the creditors

were paid.

Twain accepted an offer from

Robert Sparrow Smythe

[38]

and embarked on a year-long,

around-the-world lecture tour in July 1895

[39]

to pay off his creditors in full, although he was no

longer under any legal obligation to do so.

[40]

It would be a long, arduous journey and he was sick

much of the time, mostly from a cold and a

carbuncle

. The itinerary took him

to

Hawaii

,

Fiji

,

Australia

,

New Zealand

,

Sri Lanka

,

India

,

Mauritius

,

South Africa

and

England

.

Twain's three months in India became the centerpiece of his 712-page book

Following the Equator

.

In mid-1900, he was the guest of newspaper proprietor

Hugh Gilzean-Reid

at

Dollis Hill House

,

located on the north side of

London

, UK. In regard to Dollis Hill, Twain wrote that he had

seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and

everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the

world.

[41]

He then returned to America in 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts.

Speaking engagements

Twain was in demand as a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to what would

become

stand-up comedy

.

[42]

He gave paid talks to many men's clubs, including the

Authors'

Club

,

Beefsteak Club

, Vagabonds,

White Friars

, and Monday Evening Club of Hartford. He was

made an honorary member of the

Bohemian Club

in San Francisco. In the late 1890s, he spoke to

the

Savage Club

in London and was elected honorary member. When told that only three men had

been so honored, including the

Prince of Wales

, he replied

mighty fine.

[43]

In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest,

following diplomat

Charlemagne Tower, Jr.

. In German, to the great amusement of the assemblage,

Twain delivered the speech

Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache

Language

[44]

In 1901, Twain was invited to speak at

Princeton University

's

Cliosophic Literary

Society

, where he was made an honorary member.

[45]

Later life and death

Twain passed through a period of deep

depression

that began in 1896 when his daughter Susy

died of

meningitis

. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened his

gloom.

[46]

On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly. In 1906, Twain began

his

autobiography

in the

North American Review

. In April, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith

had lost nearly all she owned in the

1906 San Francisco earthquake

, and he volunteered a few

autographed

portrait

photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith,

George

Wharton James

visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Initially resistant,

Twain admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him.

[47]

Twain formed a club in 1906 for girls he viewed as surrogate granddaughters, the Angel Fish and

Aquarium Club. The dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters

with his

wrote in 1908 that the club was his

[48]

In 1907 Twain met Dorothy Quick (then

aged 11) on a transatlantic crossing, beginning

death

[49]

Oxford University

awarded Twain an honorary doctorate in letters (

.

) in 1907.

Mark Twain headstone in

Woodlawn Cemetery

.

In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:

[50]

Halley's Comet

in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It

will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has

said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go

out together.

His prediction was accurate

—

Twain died of a

heart attack

on April 21, 1910, in

Redding,

Connecticut

, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Upon hearing of Twain's death, President

William Howard Taft

said:

[51][52]

–

real intellectual enjoyment

–

to millions, and his works will

continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come ... His humor was American, but he

was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his

own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of

American literature

.

Twain's funeral was at the

[53]

He is buried in his

wife's family plot at

Woodlawn Cemetery

in

Elmira, New York

. The Langdon family plot where

he is buried is marked by a 12-foot (two fathoms, or

his surviving daughter, Clara.

[54]

There is also a smaller headstone. Although he expressed a

preference for cremation (for example in

Life on the Mississippi

), he acknowledged that his

surviving family would have the last word.

Writing

Overview

Mark Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for his

.

degree, awarded to

him by

Oxford University

Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but evolved into a chronicler of the

vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid- career, with

Huckleberry Finn

, he

combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at

rendering

colloquial speech

and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American

literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been

suppressed at times for various reasons.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

has been repeatedly

restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word

nigger

,

was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period in which the novel was set.

A complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast

number of pieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several

different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost

or were not written down; thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process.

Researchers rediscovered published material by Twain as recently as 1995.

[36]

Early journalism and travelogues

Cabin where Twain wrote

Tuolumne County

.

Click on

historical marker

and

interior view

.