Clemens, Samuel Langhorne or better known as Mark Twain started his career from California and Nevada. Most of his writings were based on the area around the Mississippi River as he had spent the maximum time of his life as a pilot in the Mississippi basin.
Here are some interesting facts about Mark Twain and his writings.
He was born on November 30, 1835 in the outskirts of Missouri. His father was from Virginia while his mother belonged to a Kentucky Family. He was reared in Hannibal and became a painter before his jobs at Ohio, Illinois, New York, Missouri and Pennsylvania. He finally became a steamer boat pilot.
He was more fascinated by the southern part. From the weird names he could think of, he named his fictitious river village St. Petersburg. He tried to fulfil his splendid dreams through his writing.
By the end of the Civil War, Mark considered Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels responsible for the inflated language and romantic juvenilities. He returned to the Mississippi in 1882 only to find the well known citizens of New Orleans at war.
He was taken by the beauty and greenery of the Louisiana plains of the Mississippi. He found nothing was as amazing as the rich dense leaves and sweet snow ball blossoms of magnolia with a tinge of tropical essence in the atmosphere. This was the south he had been longing for.
This place had cast clouds of agony in Twain’s life. He had prayed helplessly in Memphis while Henry, his beloved brother passed away when his boat blew off in the year 1858.
In his novel ‘œThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,’ he had described the ruffian attitude of the river-town tramps as cruel people of Arkansas town. In his writings he explained his idea of choosing a place away from human slavery.
In his school days, Mark Twain had no problem with the customs of slavery as he found it to be quite normal. They were taught by the local townsmen that God supported it! His family had many slaves.
According to the observations of Arthur Pettit, in his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain has described Hannibal as a land of Golden Age of Joy for pre-apiarian charm and purity. The village appeared in his eyes many a times.
His gastronomic desires got vent through his novel, A Tramp Abroad where he has listed about 20 southern recipes like the ‘œblack bass of Mississippi’ or the ‘œfried chicken in Southern way’, hot hoe-cake, hot-corn pone along with chitlings, fruity apple puffs and butter beans, hominy.
He had mentally drawn the outline of Quarles farm where he enjoyed his summers in childhood. He imagined the central log house, the slave quarters, the smoke house, the tobacco fields, the orchards, the school and so much. It was a twisted tale of his autobiography.
Mark Twain had always a fetish for writing fictitious tales but his ventures were pretty adventurous to outdo his contemporary authors such as Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page and George Washington Cable.
