Portrait: Mark Twain, an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer
Wednesday, 25 January 2023 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Editorial / Redaktion Category/Kategorie: Portrait
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Mark Twain by Ernest H Mills, ca 1895 © NPR
🔊 Listen to this Post
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his
pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer,
humorist , entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced”, and
William Faulkner called him “the father of
American literature “. His novels include
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter of which has often been called the “
Great American Novel “. Twain also wrote
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and
Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with
Charles Dudley Warner .
Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri , which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn . He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens . He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada . He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise . His humorous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ” was published in 1865, based on a story that 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 French. 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. Initially an ardent American imperialist who spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands , he later became vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910, coming out strongly against the Philippine-American War .
Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut © flickr.com - Cliff/cc-by-2.0
Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures but invested in ventures that lost most of it—such as the
Paige Compositor , a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for
bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of
Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers . He eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his bankruptcy relieved him of having to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of
Halley’s Comet , and he predicted that he would “go out with it” as well, dying the day after the comet made its closest approach to Earth.
Read more on
Mark Twain House and Museum ,
Wikipedia Mark Twain House and
Wikipedia Mark Twain (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Johns Hopkins University & Medicine - Coronavirus Resource Center -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
VIDEO
Recommended posts:
Portrait: Ernest Hemingway, American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman
Portrait: Warburg family
Portrait: The German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist and essayist Thomas Mann
Portrait: The Rockefeller family
Portrait: Franz Marc, one of the key figures of German Expressionism
Portrait: Financier and banker J. P. Morgan
Portrait: Henry Morrison Flagler, founder of many towns and cities in Florida
Portrait: Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and Academic skeptic
Portrait: The Astor family
Portrait: Guy Fawkes and the Bonfire Night
Portrait: James Lewis Kraft, founder of the world’s third largest food company
Portrait: Jules Verne, science fiction writer
Portrait: Erasmus of Rotterdam, Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian
Portrait: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States of America
Portrait: Roman emperor Hadrian
[caption id="attachment_154322" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Historic town centre © Re-Zensor[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Schwäbisch Hall (or Hall for short) is a town in the state of Baden-Württemberg and capital of the district of Schwäbisch Hall. The town is located in the valley of the river Kocher in the north-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg. The first part of the name, "Schwäbisch" refers to the name of the region, Swabia. The most probable origin of the second part of the name "Hall" is a west Germanic word fami...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_153210" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Leoben © tobias b. köhler/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Leoben is a Styrian city in central Austria, located by the Mur river. With a population of about 24,000 it is a local industrial center and hosts the University of Leoben which specialises in mining.
Leoben is known as the “Gateway to the Styrian Iron Road”. The 13th century Main Square features the Hackl House with its baroque façade in red and white. The City Parish Church, St. Francis ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_159782" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Panorama Fortress Ehrenbreitstein © Holger Weinandt[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Koblenz is a city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) and its monument (Emperor William I on horseback) are situated. As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the town celebrated its 2000th anniversary in 1992. The name Koblenz is from Latin (ad) confluentes, confluence or "(at t...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_160838" align="aligncenter" width="590"] St. Michael's Mount harbour © geograph.org.uk - Chris Downer[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]St Michael's Mount is a tidal island located 366 metres (400 yards) off the Mount's Bay coast of Cornwall. It is a civil parish and is united with the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water.
The island exhibits a combination of slate and granite. Its Cornish language name - literally, "the grey rock in the wood" ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_172126" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Q1 Resort and Spa © flickr.com - paul (dex) bica/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Q1 (an abbreviation of Queensland Number One) is a supertall skyscraper in Surfers Paradise in Queensland in Australia. The residential tower on the Gold Coast lost its title as the world's tallest residential building to the 337-metre The Marina Torch in Dubai on 29 April 2011. It is now the sixth tallest residential tower in the world and is the tallest building in Australia and...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_185897" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Cella of the Temple of Bel - destroyed in 2015 © Bernard Gagnon/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Palmyra is an ancient Semitic city (Tadmor) in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BC. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD.
T...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_196265" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Pathein © panoramio.com - oikk/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia. Myanmar is bordered by India and Bangladesh to its west, Thailand and Laos to its east and China to its north and northeast. To its south, about one third of Myanmar's total perimeter of 5,876 km (3,651 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km (1,200 mi) along the Bay of Bengal ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_230941" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Bellinzona and Castelgrande castle in the foreground © Ealgiuas/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Bellinzona is a municipality, a historic Swiss town, and the capital of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The town is famous for its three castles (Castelgrande, Montebello, Sasso Corbaro) that have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2000. The town lies east of the river Ticino, at the foot of the Alps. It stretches along the river valley, surrounded by th...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_26505" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Datastat/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA). Proponents say the agreement would result in multilateral economic growth. The American government considers the TTIP a companion agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After a proposed draft was leaked in March 2014, the European Commission launche...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_152171" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Ibiza Town © Forbfruit/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Ibiza (Catalan: Eivissa) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, 150 kilometres (93 miles) off the coast of the city of Valencia, in eastern Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. Its largest cities are Ibiza Town (Catalan: Vila d'Eivissa, or simply Vila), Santa Eulària des Riu, and Sant Antoni de Portmany. Its highest point, called Sa Talaiassa (or Sa ...
[ read more ]