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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (1835-1910)

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Early Life Born Samuel Longhorn Clemens on November 30, 1835 Son of Jane (Kentucky) and John Marshall (Virginia) The sixth of seven children, but only three siblings survived childhood Father was an attorney and judge until he died of pneumonia when Twain was 11 Twain became a printers apprentice and educated himself in public libraries in the evenings

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Studied 2,000 miles of the Mississippi River before becoming a steamboat pilot in 1859 This occupation gave him his pen name, Mark Twain, from "mark twain," the cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms He foresaw his brother Henrys death in a dream Developed an interest in parapsychology Held himself responsible for Henrys death for the rest of his life

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Traveled all over the country as a journalist First success as a writer came from a humorous story published in a New York weekly, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, in 1865 Traveled to Hawaii, then Europe and the Middle East. Compiled a collection of travel letters in The Innocents Abroad in 1869 Married Olivia Langdon, the sister of a friend he met abroad, in 1870 Four children: Langdon (died at 19 mos.), Suzy, Clara, Jean He and Olivia were married for 34 years when she died in 1904

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Major Works The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, (1876) The Prince and the Pauper, (1881) Life on the Mississippi, (1883) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, (1889)

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Last Years Depression Suzys death in 1896 (meningitis) Olivias death in 1904 Jeans death in 1909 Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate degree In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying : "I came in with 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 accurateTwain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Setting Begins in St. Petersburg, Missouri (based on Hannibal, Missouri) sometime between 1835 and 1845 Travels through Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas Themes Racism and Slavery Stereotypes and Identity Hemingway wrote : All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.