美国文学关于mark Twain的课件.ppt

* Biography Contributions and style views Major works Text Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910) better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist,essayist, lecturer. Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for his Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer Biography As a young man Twain worked as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. When he started his writing career, Samuel Clemens adopted the name “Mark Twain,” which meant two fathoms, a safe depth for a riverboat. Pictures from In 1861, Samuel Clemens avoided the brewing Civil War by going west. He took his first writing job as reporter at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Pictures from At the age of 34,he married Olivia Langdon Clemens. She was the daughter of a New York coal magnate, a member of the country’s wealthy elite. She would be partner, editor, and fellow traveler in success and failure for the next thirty-five years. She would also furnish him her family’s home in Elmira, New York, a place where he visited often and wrote many of his best-loved books. Pictures from Because of financial problems, Clemens lived in Europe from 1891-1901, but this was neither his first nor last trip abroad. In fact, he was an inveterate traveler. From the age of 17 to the last few weeks of his life he was always discovering new places and revisiting old. He crisscrossed the Atlantic more than a dozen times and also saw Turkey, Palestine, Hawaii, Australia, India, and South Africa. Pictures from By 1900 Twain had become America’s foremost celebrity. He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty Pictures from When he died on April 21, 1910, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.” By then, Sam Clemens had long since ceased to be a priva