Mark Twain
Mark Twain is a famous American writer and a journalist. His real name was Samuel Clemens. He was born in 1835 in Florida. Mark Twain started his literary career rather late. He worked as a journalist in newspapers in Nevada and California during the years of the Civil War. His father died when the boy was only 12 years old. Twain had to start working with his brother. In 1857 he became a sailor on the Mississippi. After the Civil War he worked as a reporter for the «Territorial Enterprise» in Virginia City. His witty style, characterizing all his following works, was formed during his work in that newspaper. Soon after his first stories had been published he received the fame of the first humourist of America. «The Gilded Age», «My Watch», «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» appeared during this period in Twain’s literary career. The characteristic features of American comical folklore found their place in Twain’s creative works. He ignores all the rules of the «true» art and laughs at the European civilization. As the Americans of his times he believes in democratic America, creating a new culture, ignoring all previous experience of mankind. His removal to New York and his marriage to a daughter of a coal tycoon changed a lot in his life. He tried to become a businessman, but ruined himself and had to deliver lectures. In the 1870s he wrote «Life on Mississippi», and in 1885 — «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn». «The Prince and the Pauper», and «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court» were also published during this time. In his works of that period Mark Twain showed racial prejudices, clash of humanism with antihuman materialism of bourgeois world. His works of the period greatly influenced American literature. The last period of his creative work is the time of pamphlet, which became his most favorite genre.
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