Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. His family moved to Hannibal, Missouri in 1839 where he spend the bulk of his childhood. In 1847 Twain's father died and he left school to work on the "Missouri Courier" as a typesetter. Twain had little formal training in writing, most of his training came through experience in print shops and newspaper offices.
In 1857 Mark Twain became a steamboat captain apprentice on the Mississippi River, ultimately earning his pilot's license in 1859. These years on the Mississippi gave him material for many of his future works including "Life on the Mississippi." The onset of the Civil War in 1861 effectively shut down travel on the Missisippi River. Mark joined the Revolutionary Army for a brief period then joined his brother Orion and moved to the Nevada Territory to mine for silver. This was obviously not a job suited for an aspiring writer, so the next year he began writing pieces for the "Territorial Enterprise" in Nevada. This was when he started using his pen name of Mark Twain (a Mississippi River phrase for a water depth of 2 fathoms).
In 1864 he moved to San Francisco, California where he met Artemus Ward and Bret Harte. These two men helped encourage Twain to pursue writing professionally. In 1865 he got his big break when he wrote "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaverus County". Twain then traveled to Europe and other surrounding countries as a correspondent for various newspapers, eventually publishing his travel letters in 1869. "The Innocents Abroad," as he titled this book, became his second subsequent publishing to succeed. Fueled by his success he moved and settled down in Hartford, Connecticut where he wrote the bulk of his work. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon and had two daughters, Susy and Clara. From 1873 to 1889 he wrote seven novels including: "The Prince and the Pauper"(1882), "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"(1884), and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"(1889).
In 1884 he formed the Charles L. Webster and Company publishing firm. The firm defaulted in 1894 due to a bad invest in an automatic typesetting machine. The firm's only major non-Twain publishing was "Personal Memoirs" by Ulysses S. Grant. Triggered by the failure of his business and the passing of his wife(1901) and two daughters, Twain's remaining works became more cynical and pessimistic. He died in April of 1910 before he could finish his autobiography, but it was edited by his secretary and released posthumously in 1924.
In Twain's later years he learned to acknowledge his celebrity and used it to bring attention to social injustices and government misconduct. He made many public appearances in his trademark white suit speaking to the masses with his usual humor and insightfulness. Twain's legacy will forever be remembered not just for his celebrated novels, but also for his perceptive short stories and essays. Injecting humor into purposeful works helped him become one of the most cherished writers of American history.
Bibliography:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/authors/twainm.html
http://net4tv.com/net4tv/bookworm/twain/bio.htm
http://www.cliffnotes.com
http://www.goldenessays.com/alphabetic/1/biographies/mark-twain3.htm
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mtwain.htm
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/twainbio.html
Note: This is just a quick bio I put together using various sources. I cannot attest to the 100% reliability of this information, but I included the most consistent and dependable information I could find. If anyone sees any inaccuracies I would appreciate sending me (Woburn) a message. Thank you.