Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was the sixth child of a Tennessee merchant and his wife. He spent his youth in Missouri, then a slave state which did not secede from the Union. After a career as a printer and a steamboat pilot, he became a journalist, travel writer, humorist and satirist. His famous pen name came from his days on the river, since "mark twain" represents water which is two fathoms (12 feet) deep, and thus safe for a boat to float over without running aground. While his writing earned him a great deal of money, he squandered much of it on bad investments, especially in failed technologies. A man of diverse talents, Twain also was an inventor whose creations included a steam engine and a machine to engrave printing plates. His writing redefined fiction and produced novels which remain classics of modern literature for scholars and readers alike.
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