Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens grew up in Hannibal, Missouri formal education ended at 12 (father died 1847) as a young man, a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River “Mark Twain,” means two fathoms, a safe depth for a riverboat.

 1861, avoided Civil War by going west  Virginia City Territorial Enterprise as a reporter  combined writing with public lecturing and foreign traveling  international reputation as humoristic-frontier-philosopher  by 1900, America’s foremost celebrity

With the publication of his frontier tale, “ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ”, Twain became nationally famous. Twain claims to have overheard the story he bases “ The Notorious Jumping Frog …” while he was at the Angels Hotel

Twain’s Literary Style Characters are common people - Ordinary people ordinary situations Frame Narrative- - Story within a story Regional/Vernacular Dialect – spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class Tall Tale – Humorous situations – Wildly exaggerated details – Bold, but sometimes foolish, characters – Characters with extra-ordinary or superhuman abilities – Not intended to be believable Satire – The literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in order to expose or correct it Local Color – portrayal of behaviors distinctive to a region, such as speech, behavior, dress, food, beliefs, etc. Misspellings, grammatical errors, inventive punctuation, loose sentence structure, colloquial phrase Jim Smiley Story NARRATORNARRATOR WheelerWheeler