ABSTRACT
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was to achieve fame as America's greatest humorist, was born to John and Jane Lampton Clemens in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. Clemens's childhood yielded him the rich southern background that colored his major writings about childhood and the Mississippi River and small-town life in developing America. In July 1861, Clemens accompanied his brother to Nevada where Orion was to take up appointment as Secretary of the Territory. Until the death of Olivia in Italy in 1894, much of this period of Clemens's life was spent abroad. Although A Connecticut Yankee had damaged Twain's sales in England, his foreign audience remained appreciative, lecturing could be remunerative, and privacy and inexpensive living were both possible to the expatriate. Samuel L. Clemens absorbed a wide array of literary influences and assimilated them into the personality of Mark Twain. His early writings have been heavily collected.
