Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835, Mark Twain spent his youth in Hannibal, Missouri. Trying his hand at printing, typesetting and gold-mining, he eventually found his calling in journalism and travel writing. Twain died in 1910 after a colourful life of travelling, bankruptcy and great literary success. R. Kent Rasmussen has written nine books on Twain and more than a dozen other books.
""Twain had a greater effect than any other writer on the evolution of American prose.""