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73-469: The library is home to the Mark Twain Papers, an extensive collection of the private manuscripts, sketches, essays, poems, notes, photographs and letters of Samuel Clemens ’ works as Twain. At the library's entrance is a statue of Clemens holding a copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , sculpted by Gary Lee Price . The statue is commonly mistaken for Albert Einstein , with whom Twain shared

146-527: A French translation of this story by Thérèse Bentzon published in 1872, Twain back-translated the story into English, word for word, retaining the French grammatical structure and syntax. He then published all three versions in 1903 under the title "The Jumping Frog: in English, then in French, and then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil". In "Private History of

219-462: A copyright . In 1883, Twain paid a brief visit to Ottawa , and he visited Toronto twice in 1884 and 1885 on a reading tour with George Washington Cable , known as the "Twins of Genius" tour. The reason for the Toronto visits was to secure Canadian and British copyrights for Twain's upcoming book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , to which he had alluded in his Montreal visit. The reason for

292-836: A stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains , visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City . Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada , where he became a miner on the Comstock Lode . Twain failed as a miner and went to work at the Virginia City newspaper Territorial Enterprise , working under a friend, the writer Dan DeQuille . Twain first used his pen name here on February 3, 1863, when he wrote

365-576: A time traveler from the contemporary U.S., using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of historical manipulation became a trope of speculative fiction as alternate histories . In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at Stormfield , his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909),

438-722: A "wealthy but liberal family"; through her, Twain met abolitionists , "socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and social equality ", including Harriet Beecher Stowe , Frederick Douglass , and utopian socialist writer William Dean Howells , who became a long-time friend. The Clemenses lived in Buffalo, New York , from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper and worked as an editor and writer. While they were living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of diphtheria in 1872 at

511-561: A Canadian resident; Twain addressed this by his short visits to the country. In his later years, Twain lived at 14 West 10th Street in Manhattan . He passed through a period of deep depression which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis . Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened Twain's gloom. On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly. In April 1906, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all that she owned in

584-469: A Doctorate of Law in 1907. Twain was born two weeks after Halley's Comet 's closest approach in 1835; he said in 1909: I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together". Twain's prediction

657-608: A Second Lieutenant . Twain later wrote the sketch " The Private History of a Campaign That Failed ", describing how he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before their unit disbanded. Twain then left for Nevada to work for his brother Orion, who was Secretary of the Nevada Territory . Twain describes the episode in his book Roughing It . Orion became secretary to Nevada Territory governor James W. Nye in 1861, and Twain joined him when he moved west. The brothers traveled more than two weeks on

730-450: A correspondence for many years after Clemens left the river. While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him, and even arranged a post of mud clerk for him on the steamboat Pennsylvania . On June 13, 1858, the steamboat's boiler exploded; Henry succumbed to his wounds eight days later. Twain claimed to have foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology ; Twain

803-511: A couple of thousand years ago. I think it must be a case of history actually repeating itself, and not a case of a good story floating down the ages and surviving because too good to be allowed to perish. Later, however, in November 1903, Twain noted that he had uncovered the anachronism of finding Twain's story in Sidgwick 's Greek textbook: When I became convinced that the "Jumping Frog"

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876-573: A day after the comet was at its closest to Earth. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri . He was the sixth of seven children of Jane ( née Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky , and John Marshall Clemens (1798–1847), a native of Virginia . His parents met when his father, a lawyer called to the bar in Kentucky, tried to help Jane's father and uncle avoid bankruptcy. They were married in 1823. Twain

949-497: A first issue run of only 1,000 copies. The first edition was issued in seven colors (with no priority) — blue, brown, green, lavender, plum, red, and terra-cotta — and is sought after by book collectors, fetching thousands of dollars at auctions. In the book version, Twain changed Greeley back to Smiley. The narrator is sent by a friend to interview an old man, Simon Wheeler, who might know the location of an old acquaintance named Leonidas W. Smiley. Finding Simon at an old mining camp,

1022-648: A humorous travel account titled "Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music" and signed it "Mark Twain". Twain's experiences in the American West inspired Roughing It , written during 1870–71 and published in 1872. His experiences in Angels Camp (in Calaveras County, California) provided material for "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). Twain moved to San Francisco in 1864, still as

1095-467: A journalist, and met writers such as Bret Harte and Artemus Ward . He may have been romantically involved with the poet Ina Coolbrith . Twain's first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published on November 18, 1865, in the New York weekly The Saturday Press , bringing him national attention. A year later, Twain traveled to

1168-638: A lead by Poultney Bigelow , who had a good experience being treated by Dr. Jonas Henrik Kellgren, a Swedish osteopathic practitioner in Belgravia . They were persuaded to spend the summer at Kellgren's sanatorium by the lake in the Swedish village of Sanna. Coming back in fall, they continued the treatment in London, until Twain was convinced by lengthy inquiries in America that similar osteopathic expertise

1241-932: A likeness. The Gardner (Main) Stacks is a four-story underground structure consisting of 52 miles of bookshelves, most of which are mobile shelving . It is home to 2.3 million of the 4.5 million volumes in Doe Library's research collection; the rest are stored off-campus at the Northern Regional Library Facility in Richmond. The Main Stacks is home to most of UC Berkeley's books covering the arts, humanities, and social sciences, although collections for certain specific fields (e.g., East Asian history) are housed separately in other libraries on campus. The Main Stacks were constructed in 1994 with four large skylights to allow for natural lighting of

1314-445: A moment. The narrator realizes that Jim has no connection to Leonidas and gets up to leave, only to have Simon stop him at the door, offering to tell him about a yellow, one-eyed, stubby-tailed cow that Jim had owned. Rather than stay to hear another pointless story, the narrator excuses himself and leaves. He muses that his friend may have fabricated Leonidas as a pretext to trick him into listening to Simon's anecdotes. Upon discovering

1387-620: A much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Although Twain initially spoke out in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands , he later reversed his position, going on to become vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910, coming out strongly against

1460-608: A port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge who died of pneumonia in 1847, when Twain was only 11. The following year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become

1533-567: A printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter , contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal , a newspaper that Orion owned. When Twain was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City , Philadelphia , St. Louis , and Cincinnati , joining the newly formed International Typographical Union , the printers' trade union . Twain educated himself in public libraries in

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1606-655: A quiet place in which to write and enjoy his cigars. Twain wrote many of his classic novels during his 17 years in Hartford (1874–1891) and over 20 summers at Quarry Farm. They include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years until Olivia's death in 1904. All of

1679-465: A single gigantic library complex. Because Doe's regular circulating collection is now stored underground in the Main Stacks, Doe's aboveground building is now visited primarily for its large reading rooms and to access non-circulating reference collections. Prior to the construction of the Main Stacks, Doe Library's book collections were stored inside the main building in a central space called

1752-542: A stranger visits the camp, Jim shows off Dan'l and offers to bet $ 40 that it can out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County . The stranger, unimpressed, says that he would take the bet if he had a frog, so Jim goes out to catch one, leaving him alone with Dan'l. While Jim is away, the stranger pours lead shot down Dan'l's throat. Once Jim returns, he and the stranger set the frogs down and let them loose. The stranger's frog jumps away while Dan'l does not budge, and

1825-571: A two-reel short film. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain. Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments. Twain invested mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine . It was considered a mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but it was prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $ 300,000 (equivalent to $ 9,471,724 in 2023) on it between 1880 and 1894, but before it could be perfected it

1898-480: A year-long around-the-world lecture tour in July 1895 to pay off his creditors in full, although Twain was no longer under any legal obligation to do so. It was a long, arduous journey, and he was sick much of the time, mostly from a cold and a carbuncle . The first part of the itinerary took Twain across northern America to British Columbia , Canada, until the second half of August. For the second part, he sailed across

1971-622: The North American Review . The same year, Charlotte Teller , a writer living with her grandmother at 3 Fifth Avenue, began an acquaintanceship with him which "lasted several years and may have included romantic intentions" on his part. In 1906, Twain formed the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club, for girls whom he viewed as surrogate granddaughters. Its dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and

2044-447: The 1906 San Francisco earthquake , and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Twain was resistant initially, but he eventually admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him. In September, Twain started publishing chapters from his autobiography in

2117-599: The Doe Core . Since then, this space has been used for temporary libraries displaced under seismic retrofitting on the Berkeley campus. Doe Core is 70 feet tall. 37°52′20″N 122°15′34″W  /  37.87210°N 122.25940°W  / 37.87210; -122.25940 Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain ,

2190-641: The Philippine–American War and American colonialism . Twain published a satirical pamphlet, " King Leopold's Soliloquy ", in 1905 about Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State . Twain earned a great deal of money from his writing and lectures, but invested in ventures that lost most of it, such as the Paige Compositor , a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in

2263-835: The Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union . His letters to the Union were popular and became the basis for his first lectures. In 1867, local newspapers The Alta California and New-York Tribune funded Twain's trip to the Mediterranean aboard the Quaker City , including a tour of Europe and the Middle East. He wrote a collection of travel letters which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad (1869). It

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2336-627: The Virginia City Territorial Enterprise . Twain first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story " The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ," which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California , where Twain had spent some time while he was working as a miner . The short story brought Twain international attention. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, Twain became

2409-662: The Clemens family are buried in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery . Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla , and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory. Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders ) and a history trivia game. Most commercially successful

2482-702: The Ottawa visit had been to secure Canadian and British copyrights for Life on the Mississippi . Publishers in Toronto had printed unauthorized editions of Twain's books at the time, before an international copyright agreement was established in 1891. These were sold in the United States as well as in Canada, depriving him of royalties. Twain estimated that Belford Brothers' edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer alone had cost him $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 340,000 in 2023). He had unsuccessfully attempted to secure

2555-636: The Pacific Ocean. Twain's scheduled lecture in Honolulu , Hawaii, had to be canceled due to a cholera epidemic. Twain went on to Fiji , Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka , India, Mauritius , and South Africa. His three months in India became the centerpiece of his 712-page book Following the Equator . In the second half of July 1896, Twain sailed back to England, completing his circumnavigation of

2628-484: The age of 19 months. They had three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962), and Jean (1880–1909). The Clemenses formed a friendship with David Gray, who worked as an editor of the rival Buffalo Courier , and his wife Martha. Twain later wrote that the Grays were " 'all the solace' he and Livy had during their 'sorrowful and pathetic brief sojourn in Buffalo ' ", and that Gray's "delicate gift for poetry"

2701-468: The business, and no Greek story about his adventures. Professor Sidgwick [in his textbook for students learning to translate English texts into Greek, Greek Prose Composition , p. 116] had not claimed that it was a Greek tale; he had merely synopsized the Calaveras tale and transferred the incident to classic Greece; but as he did not state that it was the same old frog, the English papers reproved him for

2774-600: The diplomat Charlemagne Tower, Jr. He delivered the speech " Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache " ("The Horrors of the German Language")—in German—to the great amusement of the audience. In 1901, Twain was invited to speak at Princeton University 's Cliosophic Literary Society , where he was made an honorary member. In 1881, Twain was honored at a banquet in Montreal , Canada where he made reference to securing

2847-1160: The dwindling income and moved to Europe in June 1891. William M. Laffan of The New York Sun and the McClure Newspaper Syndicate offered him the publication of a series of six European letters. Twain, Olivia, and their daughter Susy were all faced with health problems, and they believed that it would be of benefit to visit European baths. The family stayed mainly in France, Germany, and Italy until May 1895, with longer spells at Berlin (winter 1891–92), Florence (fall and winter 1892–93), and Paris (winters and springs 1893–94 and 1894–95). During that period, Twain returned to New York four times due to his enduring business troubles. Twain rented "a cheap room" in September 1893 at $ 1.50 per day (equivalent to $ 51 in 2023) at The Players Club , which he had to keep until March 1894; meanwhile, Twain became "the Belle of New York," in

2920-501: The evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi , stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. "Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay." As Twain described it,

2993-563: The issue in his speeches, interviews, and writings. In January 1901, Twain began serving as vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League of New York. Twain was in great demand as a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to modern stand-up comedy. He gave paid talks to many men's clubs, including the Authors' Club , Beefsteak Club , Vagabonds, White Friars , and Monday Evening Club of Hartford. In

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3066-404: The last word. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County " The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County " is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain . It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention. The story has also been published as " Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog " (its original title) and " The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ". In it,

3139-706: The late 1890s, Twain spoke to the Savage Club in London and was elected an honorary member. He was told that only three men had been so honored, including the Prince of Wales , and Twain replied: "Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine." He visited Melbourne and Sydney in 1895 as part of a world lecture tour. In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest, following

3212-415: The narrator asks him if he knows anything about Leonidas; Simon appears not to, and instead tells a story about Jim Smiley, a man who had visited the camp years earlier. Jim loves to gamble and will offer to bet on anything and everything, from horse races to dogfights, to the health of the local parson's wife. He catches a frog, whom he names Dan'l Webster, and spends three months training it to jump. When

3285-475: The narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California , about the gambler Jim Smiley. The narrator describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he

3358-807: The omission. He told me this in England in 1899 or 1900, and was much troubled about that censure, for his act had been innocent, he believing that the story's origin was so well known as to render formal mention of it unnecessary. But in A. Sidgwick's "Note to the Thirteenth Edition" (1907), among "hearty... thanks for... help received", Prof. Sidgwick still failed to acknowledge his use of the Twain tale. Lukas Foss composed The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County , an opera in two scenes with libretto by Jean Karsavina, based on Twain's story. The opera premiered on May 18, 1950, at Indiana University. The story

3431-404: The pilot's prestige exceeded that of the captain. The pilot had to "get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cottonwood and every obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, must... actually know where these things are in the dark". Steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him

3504-519: The rights for The Prince and the Pauper in 1881, in conjunction with his Montreal trip. Eventually, Twain received legal advice to register a copyright in Canada (for both Canada and Britain) prior to publishing in the United States, which would restrain the Canadian publishers from printing a version when the American edition was published. There was a requirement that a copyright be registered to

3577-417: The river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $ 500 (equivalent to $ 18,000 in 2023), payable out of Twain's first wages after graduating. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would "tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated". It

3650-405: The surprised and disgusted Jim pays the $ 40 wager. After the stranger has departed, Jim notices Dan'l's sluggishness and picks the frog up, finding it to be much heavier than he remembers. When Dan'l belches out a double handful of lead shot, Jim realizes that he has been cheated and chases after the stranger, but never catches him. At this point in the story, Simon excuses himself to go outside for

3723-493: The theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight". In 1907, he met Dorothy Quick (then age 11) on a transatlantic crossing, beginning "a friendship that was to last until the very day of his death". Twain was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) by Yale University in 1901 and a Doctor of Law by the University of Missouri in 1902. Oxford University awarded him

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3796-406: The underground structure. It is located immediately in front of the Doe Library building, underneath Doe's entrance plaza and a significant portion of Memorial Glade (all of which were dug up during the mid-1990s and then later rebuilt). The main entrance to the Gardner (Main) Stacks is through Doe, but the stacks are also connected to nearby Moffitt Library by means of an underground hallway to form

3869-404: The wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers . Twain eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his declaration of bankruptcy meant he was not required to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet , and predicted that his death would accompany it as well, dying

3942-652: The words of biographer Albert Bigelow Paine . Twain's writings and lectures enabled him to recover financially, combined with the help of his friend Henry Huttleston Rogers . In 1893, Twain began a friendship with the financier, a principal of Standard Oil , that lasted the remainder of his life. Rogers first made Twain file for bankruptcy in April 1894, then had him transfer the copyrights on his written works to his wife to prevent creditors from gaining possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all his creditors were paid. Twain accepted an offer from Robert Sparrow Smythe and embarked on

4015-429: The world begun 14 months before. Twain and his family spent four more years in Europe, mainly in England and Austria (October 1897 to May 1899), with longer spells in London and Vienna . Clara had wished to study the piano under Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. However, Jean's health did not benefit from consulting with specialists in Vienna, the "City of Doctors". The family moved to London in spring 1899, following

4088-472: The ‘Jumping Frog’ Story", Twain recounts how he encountered some plagiarism of the story from an unlikely source. He was surprised to find that the frog story was apparently sourced from an ancient Greek tale. He wrote: Now, then, the interesting question is, did the frog episode happen in Angels Camp in the spring of ‘49, as told in my hearing that day in the fall of 1865? I am perfectly sure that it did. I am also sure that its duplicate happened in Boeotia

4161-404: Was a Greek story two or three thousand years old, I was sincerely happy, for apparently here was a most striking and satisfactory justification of a favorite theory of mine—to wit, that no occurrence is sole and solitary, but is merely a repetition of a thing which has happened before, and perhaps often.... By-and-by, in England, after a few years, I learned that there hadn't been any Greek frog in

4234-428: Was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages needed only to be moistened before use. More than 25,000 were sold. Twain was an early proponent of fingerprinting as a forensic technique, featuring it in a tall tale in Life on the Mississippi (1883) and as a central plot element in the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) features

4307-400: Was also adapted as a scene in the film The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985), in which Mark Twain retells the story in short to Tom Sawyer , Huck Finn , and Becky Thatcher . The short story collection The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches , Twain's first book, contains 27 short stories and sketches. It was published by the American News Company in 1867 under

4380-577: Was an American writer, humorist , and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature ." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the " Great American Novel ." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and cowrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner . Twain

4453-402: Was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research . Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. Twain continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the Civil War broke out in 1861, when traffic was curtailed along the Mississippi River. At the start of hostilities, he enlisted briefly in a local Confederate unit, the Marion Rangers as

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4526-466: Was at the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York . The Langdon family plot is marked by a 12-foot monument (two fathoms, or "mark twain") placed there by Twain's surviving daughter Clara. There is also a smaller headstone. He expressed a preference for cremation (for example, in Life on the Mississippi ), but he acknowledged that his surviving family would have

4599-593: Was available there. In mid-1900, Twain was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House , located on the north side of London. Twain wrote that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world." Twain then returned to America in October 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts. In winter 1900/01, Twain became his country's most prominent opponent of imperialism , raising

4672-473: Was bound for and how long he was on the road." The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches is also the title story of an 1867 collection of short stories by Mark Twain. It was Twain's first book and collected 27 stories that were previously published in magazines and newspapers. Twain first wrote the title short story at the request of his friend Artemus Ward , for inclusion in an upcoming book. Twain worked on two versions, but neither

4745-559: Was eerily accurate; he died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Stormfield , one month before the comet passed Earth that year. Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said: Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come … His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature . Twain's funeral

4818-457: Was more than two years before he received his pilot's license. Piloting also gave Twain his pen name from " mark twain ", the leadsman's cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat. As a young pilot, Clemens served on the steamer A. B. Chambers with Grant Marsh , who became famous for his exploits as a steamboat captain on the Missouri River. The two liked and admired each other, and maintained

4891-416: Was of English and Scots-Irish descent. Only three of his siblings lived beyond childhood: Orion (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Henry (1838–1858). His brother Pleasant Hannibal (1828) died at three weeks of age, his sister Margaret (1830–1839) died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832–1842) died three years later. When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri ,

4964-583: Was on this trip that Twain met fellow passenger Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia . Twain later claimed to have fallen in love at first sight . Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in Yale University 's secret society Scroll and Key in 1868. Twain and Olivia Langdon corresponded throughout 1868. She rejected his first marriage proposal, but Twain continued to court her and managed to overcome her father's initial reluctance. They were married in Elmira, New York in February 1870. She came from

5037-558: Was raised in Hannibal, Missouri , which later provided the setting for both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn . He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens ' newspaper. Twain then became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River , which provided him the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada . He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for

5110-490: Was rendered obsolete by the Linotype . He lost the bulk of his book profits, as well as a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance. Twain also lost money through his publishing house, Charles L. Webster and Company , which enjoyed initial success selling the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant but failed soon afterward, losing money on a biography of Pope Leo XIII . Fewer than 200 copies were sold. Twain and his family closed down their expensive Hartford home in response to

5183-416: Was satisfactory to him—neither got around to describing the jumping frog contest. Ward pressed him again, but by the time Twain devised a version he was willing to submit, that book was already nearing publication, so Ward sent it instead to The New York Saturday Press , where it appeared in the November 18, 1865, edition as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog". Twain's colorful story was immensely popular, and

5256-471: Was soon printed in many different magazines and newspapers. Twain developed the idea further, and Bret Harte published this version in The Californian on December 16, 1865; this time titled "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", and Smiley's name was changed to Greeley. Further popularity of the tale led Twain to use the story to anchor his own first book, which appeared in 1867 with

5329-413: Was wasted working for a newspaper. Starting in 1873, Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut , where he arranged the building of a home next door to Stowe. In the 1870s and 1880s, the family summered at Quarry Farm in Elmira, the home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane. In 1874, Susan had a study built, an octagonal gazebo, apart from the main house as a surprise to Twain so that he would have

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