FAST FACTS

Birth name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Nickname (name change): Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass
Occupation: Novelist
Birth date: November 30, 1835
Birth place: Florida, Mo.
Death date: April 21, 1910
Death place: Redding, Conn.
Burial location: Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, N.Y.
Spouse: Olivia Langdon
Children: Langdon Clemens, Susy Clemens, Clara Clemens, Jean Clemens

Did you know?

• Haley's Comet was visible in the sky both on the night that Mark Twain was born and on the night he passed away.
• Mark Twain published more than 30 books throughout his career.
• Hannibal, Mo. served as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersberg in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
• As a teenager, Twain worked as an apprentice printer.
• As a riverboat pilot, Twain earned from $150 to $250 a month.
• During the Civil War, Twain formed a Confederate militia known as the "Marion Rangers." The militia disbanded after approximately two weeks.
• Twain left Missouri after his militia disbanded and moved to Nevada. There he worked as a miner.
• "Roughing It" describes Twain's journey out West with his brother Orion.
• From 1901 until his death in 1910, Twain was vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League.
• "Huckleberry Finn" was ranked as the fifth most frequently challenged book in the United States by the American Library Association.
• Prior to adopting Mark Twain as his pen name, Clemens wrote under the pen name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass for a number of humorous pieces that he contributed to the Keokuk Post.