Mark Twain was a denizen of Florida, Missouri in 1835.

When he was four years of age, he moved to Hannibal, Missouri.

His formal schooling ended when he was twelve years of age. At that time he became an apprentice for a printer.

Twain’s flair for words took him into journalism. Here he aspired to take on writing as his career.

Years later he became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River.

“It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

‘All right then, I’ll go to hell’- and tore it up.”

Contemporary example:

People, sometimes, do what is the popular thing or what is good for a friend in this case and not the right or legal thing to do.

“ Behold, the fool saith, ‘Put not all thine eggs in one basket’– Which is but saying, ‘ Scatter your money and your attention’; but the wise man saith, ‘Put all your eggs in the one basket and watch that basket.”

Contemporary example:

This is a good example of the stock market. You shouldn’t put all of your money in the same stock because if it falls you lose everything but if you have it spread out you can keep some of your money. If you do put all of your money in one stock, watch it and see how it goes up and down.

“The servants said that he has spent the best part of his life there during the previous two years.”

- Pudd’nhead Wilson

“Light and dark or black and white; ineffectual attempts at reform.”

- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Even the dualists’ subordinates came in for a handsome share of the public approbation: wherefore Pudd’nhead Wilson was suddenly become a man of consequence.”

- Pudd’nhead Wilson

“Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for – and justified.”

- Pudd’nhead Wilson

- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“They fired a shot apiece as they started but their bullets whizzed by and didn’t do us any harm.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered to be Mark Twain’s greatest classic. Twain shows the epitome of classic American Literature writing style. Since many of the characters in the book are based on acquaintances of Mark Twain, it adds a little realism to the text. This classic can put you back in the 1840s even though it is not the 1840s now and it was not written in the 1840s either. Entirely written in the first person point of view, the novel is told from an uneducated boy living on the Mississippi River speaking with southern dialect. As you all know this southern dialect makes the book a little more confusing and harder to read.

Pudd’nhead Wilson is considered as another one of Mark Twain’s greatest novels. The use of southern dialect in this work adds to it too. “Angelo” and “Luigi” were Siamese twins in Europe and the novel was supposed to be about the twins. This is interesting because the book was changed so much. The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson was written in Twain’s so-called dark period. A time in which Twain was in financial disaster in which much of his writing had a dark, pessimistic tone. This is shown in the murders, conspiracies, and trouble in this book.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about the adventures of a young boy, Huck, and a runaway slave, Jim, as they travel down the Mississippi River. Huck’s father goes on a drunken binge after the Widow Douglass isn’t appointed Huck’s official guardian. Pap moves Huck to a melancholy cabin three miles up river. Huck fakes his own death and escapes in a canoe to Jackson’s Island. On the third day Huck finds Jim. After several weeks Huck gets word that the island is going to be searched for Jim. They pack their things and travel up the river to Cairo, Illinois. They find that they pass the town in the fog and continue to travel the river. They come upon two swindlers known as the King and the Duke. The four travelers continue floating the river. Huck decided to write a letter to Jim’s master but then tears it up to help Jim gain his freedom. Little does he know that the King has sold Jim for $40 behind his back. They go to the Phelps farm and Huck is mistaken for his friend Tom Sawyer. Tom agrees to help them in their quest for Jim’s freedom. Jim is being imprisoned in a cabin on the farm. Tom and Huck sneak Jim off of the farm and back to the raft. Tom is hit by a bullet during the escape. He is treated and then returned to the farm again. Miss Watson, Jim’s master, dies and frees Jim in her will. Tom doesn’t want to be adopted by Tom’s Aunt Sally and decides to start out for the Territories ahead of the rest.

Pudd’nhead Wilson is a Northerner who comes to the small town of Dawson’s Landing, Missouri to build his career as a lawyer. When he first gets to the town, the townspeople alienate him because of his wit. They nickname him “Pudd’nhead” and refuse to give him their legal work. He makes due by doing odd work and spends his spare time working with scientific hobbies like especially finger printing.Roxy is a beautiful slave who is only one-sixteenth black and can pass for white. She switches her infant son with her master’s infant son to keep him from being sold as a slave. Roxy’s son Chambers, now Tom, grows up as a white man. Her master’s son Tom, now Chambers, grows up as a slave. Tom is a cynical , haughty man. He has gambling debts, robs houses, sells freed Roxy, and finally murders his uncle, Judge Driscoll. Luigi and Angelo are former sideshow performers from Italy. They come to Dawson’s Landing to rent a room to get away from their busy schedules. Luigi confesses to Pudd’nhead that he killed a man who tried to steal an Indian knife from them. The knife is then stolen by Tom and used to try to kill Judge Driscoll. The judge lives but Tom gets Luigi arrested and tells his uncle that Luigi is a confessed assassin. Pudd’nhead Wilson is elected city mayor. Tom murders Judge Driscoll with the Indian knife while he is robbing him but he escapes dressed as a woman. The brothers were taking a walk when they heard the volatile screams of the judge. They rushed to help but were then found standing over the dead body with the sanguine colored knife on the floor. Pudd’nhead, the brother’s attorney, looks through his collection of fingerprints and discovers that Tom’s prints were on the knife. They also discovered that he is not the real Tom but Chambers. Tom is thrown in jail and the brother’s, Luigi and Angelo leave to go back to Europe. Pudd’nhead finally finds his success as a mayor and a lawyer.

It all started with a boy named Huck

He seemed to run quite a muck

The Widow Douglass tried to adopt him

But his drunken father attempted to move him

In a deserted cabin three miles up

He made a friend with his luck

His name was Jim

He was fit and trim

Until he was sold

So the story is told

Huck and Tom

Who tried so long

Got him out

And went about

AA++

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Random House, inc., 1875.

Twain, Mark. Pudd’nhead Wilson. New York: Bantam Books, inc., 1893.

Twain, Mark. Introduction. American Literature.New York: Glencoe/ McGraw-Kill Education Division,1991.

Mark Twain Information. 16 Feb. 2002

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-Mark Twain