Works in the Collection Manuscript Materials Biographies Other Resources
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He worked in his teenage years in printing, but eventually decided to become a riverboat captain. Granted his riverboat pilot's license in 1859, Clemens piloted boats until the Civil War broke out in 1861. A brief stint as a volunteer Confederate soldier proved ill-suited to Clemens, and he instead took up a career as a journalist. He signed an early travel letter " Mark Twain," a term borrowed from his riverboat days, and the pseudonym stayed with him for the rest of his life. Mark Twain became well-known for humorous stories, such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and his entertaining accounts of his travels through the West, to Hawaii, and throughout the world. Many of these were collected into The Innocents Abroad. In 1870, Clemens married and settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he continued to write, producing novels including Life on the Mississippi and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He continued to write humorous if occasionally dark pieces until the end of his life in 1910.
A Book for an Hour, Containing Choice Reading and Character Sketches (1873) (Restricted)
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867)
The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner (1873)
The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress (1869)
Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (1871) (Restricted)
Mark Twain's Sketches (1874) (Restricted)
Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old (1875) (Restricted)
Roughing It (1872)
Manuscript: Corrections to Roughing It
Manuscript: Notes on illustrations for Roughing It
Manuscript: Autobiographical Sketch
Manuscript: Pages from The Gilded Age
Document: Contract for The Innocents Abroad (October 16, 1868)
Document: List of words in Twain's works
Letter: Clemens to Elisha Bliss (no date)
Letter: Clemens to Rudolph Lindau ("Sunday," no date)
Letter: Mark Twain to Fuller (June 7, 1867)
Letter: Clemens to Webb (November 26, no year)
Letter: Twain to James Redpath (April 20, no year)
Letter: Clemens to Elisha Bliss (March 4, 1873)
Letter: Twain to James Redpath (December 21 1873)
Letter: Clemens to Mrs. Fairchild (March 8, 1892)
Letter: Clemens to Chatto & Windus (May 23, 1893)
Letter: Clemens to Mr. Harper (September 11-12, 1894)
Letter: Clemens to Mr. Horne (June 19, 1895)
Letter: H. H. Rogers to Clemens (March 6, 1896)
Letter: Clemens to John Hay (March 11, no year)
Letter: J. T. Trowbridge to Society of American Authors about Twain (November 14, 1900)
Letter: Clemens to George Bernard Shaw (July 4, 1907)
Letter: Clemens to Champ Clark (June 5, 1909)
Letter: Clemens to Bishop (October 11, 1909)
Letter: from Mark Twain (April 21, 1910)
Photo: Mark Twain, in bed.
Photo: Postcard image of Twain.
From Oscar Fay Adams, A Dictionary of American Authors (1901)
From Samuel Austin Allibone, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1900)