Mark Twain & Haley's Comet
One of Mark Twain's most famous quotes: "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
On Nov. 30, 1835, the small town of Florida, Missouri witnessed the birth of its most famous son, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of six siblings. The family later moved to Hannibal, a port on the Mississippi River. As a teenager, Twain worked as an apprentice printer. Later, as a riverboat pilot, he earned from $150 to $250 a month, a tidy sum those days.
Prior to adopting Mark Twain as his pen name, Clemens wrote a number of humorous pieces under the pen name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass. He died peacefully on April 21, 1910 in Redding Connecticut and is buried in New York state.
Haley's Comet was visible in the sky on the night that Mark Twain was born. Remarkably the comet appeared again on the night he passed away. He had made note of the comet's appearance on his birth date and said he wanted to die when it came again. It did, and he did!
His classic trio of books that have been cherished for more than a hundred years are Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Life On The Mississippi.
Ernest Hemingway had this to say about him: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
There is more information about him on the Internet than any other author, living or dead. To read any of his many books for free visit http://www.marktwainbooks.org.
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