Mark Twain
Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), American author of *Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* and *The Adventures of Tom Sawyer*.
The name comes from a riverboat term meaning two fathoms deep—safe water.
Twain's satirical wit and vernacular style made him a defining voice in American literature: He writes like Mark Twain on a good day.
Shallow-draft inland watercraft
- steamboatEngine-powered watercraft
- HannibalCarthaginian military commander
- pilotOne who steers aircraft
- raftFlat water conveyance
navigation · river · Samuel Clemens · sternwheeler · pilot house · leadsman · fathom · sounding
- The Gilded AgeLate 1800s American prosperity
- Joan of ArcMedieval French military saint
- JimShortened form of James
- St. PetersburgRussian Baltic port city
Clever, inventive humor
- satireMockery exposing vice
- ironyMeaning opposite to words
- sarcasmIrony used to mock
- parodySatirical imitation
social commentary · lampoon · mockery · raconteur · quips · drollery · aphorism · deadpan
Writer of prose narratives
- writerCreator of texts
- American literatureU.S. written works
- lecturerOne who teaches formally
- essayistAuthor of short prose
Samuel Clemens · storyteller · realism · biographer · journalist · travel writer · Hartford · Elmira
- pen nameAuthor's assumed identity
- nom de plumeAuthor's false identity
- aliasAdopted false name
- bylineArticle author identification
Late 1800s American prosperity
- 19th centuryThe eighteen hundreds
- VictorianOf a prim era
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- ReconstructionPost-1865 national reunification period
American frontier · gold rush · Wild West · Civil War · industrialization · San Francisco · Virginia City · Nevada
riverboat
Shallow-draft inland watercraft
- steamboatEngine-powered watercraft
- HannibalCarthaginian military commander
- pilotOne who steers aircraft
raft · navigation · river · Samuel Clemens · sternwheeler · pilot house · leadsman · fathom · sounding · current
Huckleberry Finn
- The Gilded AgeLate 1800s American prosperity
- Joan of ArcMedieval French military saint
- JimShortened form of James
wit
Clever, inventive humor
parody · social commentary · lampoon · mockery · raconteur · quips · drollery · aphorism · deadpan · lecture circuit
novelist
Writer of prose narratives
- writerCreator of texts
- American literatureU.S. written works
- lecturerOne who teaches formally
Samuel Clemens · essayist · storyteller · realism · biographer · journalist · travel writer · Hartford · Elmira · dictation
Samuel Clemens
- pen nameAuthor's assumed identity
- nom de plumeAuthor's false identity
- aliasAdopted false name
Gilded Age
Late 1800s American prosperity
- 19th centuryThe eighteen hundreds
- VictorianOf a prim era
- antebellumBefore a war's start
Reconstruction · American frontier · gold rush · Wild West · Civil War · industrialization · San Francisco · Virginia City · Nevada · California
- literaturebooks, book, fiction, poetry, stories
- AuthorsShakespeare, William Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald, Hemingway
- NovelistsStephen King, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy
- American ClassicsMoby-Dick, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Leaves of Grass
- American LiteratureThe Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Moby Dick
- 1880s LiteratureTreasure Island, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, King Solomon's Mines, Ben-Hur
Mark TwainHenry James
"The Ambassadors" author
Edith Wharton · Nathaniel Hawthorne · Ralph Waldo Emerson · T.S. Eliot · Marcel Proust
Mark TwainRalph Waldo Emerson
Horatio Alger · Henry David Thoreau · Walt Whitman · Billy Graham · Dale Carnegie