He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. Twain later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada.
He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter of which has often been called the ' Great American Novel'. He was praised as the 'greatest humorist the United States has produced', and William Faulkner called him 'the father of American literature'.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
