On this day in 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popularly known as Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri. Throughout his career, Mark Twain published more than 30 books and hundreds of short stories and essays. He was a natural-born storyteller, and the first writer to recognize that art could be created out of the American language. Mark Twain had this to say about the art of writing:
Whatever you have lived, you can write – & by hard work & a genuine apprenticeship, you can learn to write well; but what you have not lived you cannot write, you can only pretend to write it…
When he died on April 21, 1910, newspapers around the country declared, “The whole world is mourning.”
More on Mark Twain:
Mark Twain: A 2001 Film Directed by Ken Burns
Editors and Producers review photographs for the film. Watch.
Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan prepare for an interview. Watch.
An nteractive scrapbook tells Twain’s life story through a collection of texts, photos, illustrations, and clippings from his day. Scroll.
NewsHour: Mark Twain
The “Media Watch Special Report” includes the Return of Twain– a look at how Twain’s newest story finally made it to print, published 6/25/01
