Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. Twain describes the episode in his book Roughing It.
His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" published in 1865. In 1867, a local newspaper funded his trip to the Mediterranean, 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). Twain wrote many of his classic novels during his 17 years in Hartford at his home, the 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).
His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, but he invested in ventures that lost most of it.
(source: wikipedia)