Mark Twain’s * Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain
A Biography
Justin Kaplan
Simon and Schuster
New York
1966
Second printing
Hardcover in very good condition, no jacket.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family. The family soon moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain was brought up. At school, accroding to his own words, he “excelled only in spelling”. After his father’s death in 1847, Twain was apprenticed to a printer. Her also started his career as a journalist by writing for the Hannibal Journal. Later Twain worked as a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot (1857-61). His famous penname Twain adopted from the call (’Mark twain!’ - meaning by the mark of two fathoms) used when sounding river shallows. But this isn’t the full story: he had also satirized an older writer, Isaiah Sellers, who called himself Mark Twain. In 1861 Twain served briefly as a confederate irregular. The Civil War put an end to the steamboat traffic, and during a period when Twain was out of work, he lived in a primitive cabin on Jackass Hill and tried his luck as a gold-miner. “I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the rest,” he confessed.
$14.95
Justin Kaplan
Simon and Schuster
New York
1966
Second printing
Hardcover in very good condition, no jacket.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family. The family soon moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain was brought up. At school, accroding to his own words, he “excelled only in spelling”. After his father’s death in 1847, Twain was apprenticed to a printer. Her also started his career as a journalist by writing for the Hannibal Journal. Later Twain worked as a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot (1857-61). His famous penname Twain adopted from the call (’Mark twain!’ - meaning by the mark of two fathoms) used when sounding river shallows. But this isn’t the full story: he had also satirized an older writer, Isaiah Sellers, who called himself Mark Twain. In 1861 Twain served briefly as a confederate irregular. The Civil War put an end to the steamboat traffic, and during a period when Twain was out of work, he lived in a primitive cabin on Jackass Hill and tried his luck as a gold-miner. “I would have been more or less than human if I had not gone mad like the rest,” he confessed.
$14.95