English Society
Writer of the Month Mark Twain BIOGRAPHY
Mark Twain was an American writer born in Florida, Missouri in 1835 who lived to the age of 74. As a young man, he sampled several different professions before he chose to embark on a career in writing. Some of the jobs he worked at the starting from the age of 11 included being an apprentice printer and working as a typesetter. After he began writing, he contributed humorous and satirical articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. In later years, he became a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before joining the silver-mining industry. However, it did not work out for him as a miner, so he left this career and worked at a Virginia City newspaper as a reporter, which was a significant turning point in his life. While working as a reporter, he wrote a humorous story called "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which received national acclaim. Through the irony and humour he displayed in his writing, many people took a great interest in his works. Twain also managed to extend his body of work to a wider audience by marrying a woman from a wealthy but liberal family, where he gained access to presidents, artists, industrialists, and even European royalty. This made his career more successful and he even gained help when he faced financial troubles. In his later life, he was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age, and became known as "the father of American literature." FAMOUS WORKS
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