Mark Twain
... brother Orion’s Hannibal Western Union. This is where he wrote his first published works as a printer. He continued here for the next couple years before moving on to bigger and better things. He saw a lot of the world for his age, only being eighteen, and showed that he could make it on his own wherever he wanted, which kept him writing (Lauber 34-35). “His first career, as a printer, had ended. New starts were easy in Sam Clemens’s America” (Lauber 60). “In 1857 Clemens left print shops behind him for a career as a pilot on the Mississippi River, and so began three years in the profession he ever after maintained was the one he liked above any other he pursued in his lifetime” (Ziff 7). Twain met steamboat pilot Horace Bixby who ended up teaching Twain how to be a pilot. Twain got his pilot’s license at the age of twenty-three which couldn’t have been a better time for him to learn the craft of steam boating. With the start of the Civil War two years later, Twain’s steamboat pilot career had ended (Lauber 61-62). In 1861, Nevada was luring many gold and silver prospectors which inspired Twain in a sense. At the age of twenty-four, Twain decided to get away from Missouri and start up a mining company in Nevada. There he would join three other partners where he would hope to strike it rich. But to start, as Twain talked about the story in Roughing It, his profession in mining was at its high for a week and a half he had a lot of money and gave it away. Twain never did strike it rich and was forced to work elsewhere to support himself (Lauber 93-101). In September of 1862, Twain took up a job as a local reporter or “city editor” for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, which was one of the most popular newspapers in the area. He worked on articles that he enjoyed, making twenty-five dollars a week. Twain finally felt comfortable with his occupation because Virginia City was the home of a real man and Twain easily applied himself to it. He talked about political issues inside and outside the town and helped out giving humorous works (Lauber 107-110). “At the core of Twain’s unifying appeal is humor” (Ziff 114). Years later, Twain met a famous writer by the name of Dan De Quille who he would be friends with forever. Twain left the Enterprise a year later and in 1864, moved to San Francisco. He went to work there for a paper called the Call. He would be a full time reporter for the next four years or so writing for the Golden Era, the Californian, and many others (Lauber 118). The next few years Twain went on a lecture tour, starting in northern California and Nevada. He would continue to do lectures for the rest of his life and became one of the most respected speakers in the United States (Ziff 54). After leaving California in 1866, Twain went to New York City. There he decided to write his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And Other Sketches. He wrote this book from stories he wrote in his western days. Twain did more lectures throughout New York including his famous Sandwich Island lecture. Moving to Washington D.C. enabled him to write his next book called The Innocents Abroad. Twain was asked by a lady named Elisha Bliss of the American Publishing Company to write about his Quaker city experiences. Upon hearing this, he took the challenge and his book ended up being a success. Although people saw him as a local writer and a writer of his early life, he became popular and known as one of the best American writers (Ziff 31-33). The year of 1868 was one of the busiest for Twain. Finishing up his lecture tour and his sketches from different publications kept him busy, not to mention dating a lady by the name of Olivia Langdon. Twain turned the age of thirty-three at the end of the year and married Olivia shortly after. She was only twenty-five, but his love for her was undeniable. They lived together down in Buffalo, N.Y. where her father bought a house for them. Twain constantly published in magazines and newspapers and was writing books at a steady rate. Many said he was a writer who took part in the American experience. His humor made him rich and famous but still he was never satisfied (Ziff 38-40). Twain committed himself to writing novels, sketches, and giving lectures. It was around this time when he would display his best writing. In Twain’s vision, no real events by writing could be better than putting the words together in a composition. Some of his famous writings came from his boyhood days in Hannibal such as: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “Although both are set in the time of Twain’s boyhood in Hannibal, the profounder implications of Huckleberry Finn derive from the adult’s return to his past, chronicled in Life on the Mississippi. Tom Sawyer is a memory; Huckleberry Finn ...