by Roxan Finnell

Created on: July 04, 2008   Last Updated: August 01, 2009

"So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant." Mark Twain - A humorist's Confession 1905

Mark Twain was suspicious of publishers and likened them to pirates, who, once the copyright expired, would steal his work, take the money and leave his family with nothing. He devised a plan where he would protect his copyright by adding his autobiography within previously, published work.

His father owned a slave and his uncle owned several. Twain spent time playing in the slave quarters where he listened to tales, and spirituals sung by the slaves.

Twain tried his fortune by becoming a silver miner in 1861. He failed, but his journey to Nevada gave him the opportunity to meet a mixture of interesting characters that he later was able to use in his writing.

Samuel L. Clemens first used the pen name Mark Twain when he began writing for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada.

He began his own publishing company in an attempt to gain control over publication and increase his profits. The first book published by the company published was Huckleberry Finn. The company also published the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. The company failed in 1894 and he was forced to lecture worldwide to earn money.

Even though he was a financial success, Twain had the habit of making bad investments that eventually led him to bankruptcy. In an effort to pay back his debts by conserving, he moved his family to Europe in 1891

His writing turned dark in later years. He focused on greed, cruelty and questioned humanity. His anti-government writing and speeches threatened his living. He was considered a traitor by some, and several of his works were never published while he was alive because of fears that his marketable reputation would be tarnished.

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavera County was one of Twain's earliest writing, and launched his reputation as a humorist. In contrast, The Mysterious Stranger, published post humously is a dark tale that conveys the opinions he had of religion, faith, and good and evil.

"It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory-and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making." Mark Twain 1907

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