Mark Twain was born in the state of Missouri in the United States in 1835. His father was an unsuccessful lawyer. The family seldom lived more than a year or two in the same town. That is why the future writer did not even finish secondary school. He went to work at the age of 12.

For two years he worked for his elder brother's small newspaper both as a printer and reporter.

In 1857 he became a pilot on the Mississippi river. He continued to write.

In 1876 he wrote"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". The book was read by everybody, by the young and old and was translated into nearly every language in the world. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" was such a success that in 1884 he wrote "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and then "Tom Sawyer Abroad" and "Tom Sawyer the Detective" in 1896. There were many other books written by Mark Twain . But his novels about Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn brought him world fame. Mark Twain's real name was Sammuel Clemens. He took his penname from the words "to mark" and "twain" which were used by leadsmen on the steamboats to mark the depth of two fathoms.

Mark Twain's stories enjoy widespread popularity. His characters are always well-drawn, his stories are true-to-life and the plots of his stories are skilfully built up.

Many years have passed since Mark Twain's death, but even now we enjoy reading his works. Besides being a humorist, Mark Twain is also a realist — the author of biting satires and bitterly critical pages revealing a good deal of the truth about the American way of life.

Mark Twain (translation)

Mark Twain was born in Missouri in the United States of America in 1835. His father was an unsuccessful lawyer. The family rarely lived in the same city for more than 1-2 years. That's why the future writer didn't even finish high school. He went to work at the age of 12.

For two years he worked as a printer and reporter for a small newspaper owned by his older brother.

In 1857 he became a pilot on the Mississippi River and continued to write.

In 1876 he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book was read by everyone - children and adults, it was translated into almost all languages ​​of the world. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was such a success that in 1884 he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and then Tom Sawyer Abroad in Tom Sawyer the Detective, published in 1896. Mark Twain wrote many more books, but his novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn brought him worldwide fame. Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. He chose as his pseudonym the expression "marktven", which among pilots on steamboats meant a depth of two fathoms.

The stories of Mark Twain are very popular. The characters of his characters are always well revealed, his stories are true, the plots are masterfully constructed.

Many years have passed since Mark Twain died, but even now we enjoy his works. In addition to being a humorist, he is also a realist, author of sharp satire and pages of scathing criticism that reveal the truth about the American way of life.

17 Sep

English topic: Mark Twain

Topic in English: Mark Twain. This text can be used as a presentation, project, story, essay, essay or message on the topic.

early years

Mark Twain was born in Missouri in the United States on November 30, 1835. He is considered the great humorist of 19th century American literature. Twain's father was an unsuccessful lawyer. In 1838 the Mark family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River, where the young Twain experienced the thrill of seeing the colorful waterfront sights. Like many other authors of his time, he did not receive the required education. He didn't even finish high school. He started working at the age of 12. For two years, Twain worked for his older brother's small newspaper as both a printer and a reporter. 1853 Mark left Hannibal to travel. On the way to New Orleans, he persuaded a river pilot to teach him his craft. By the spring of 1859 Mark Twain was a licensed boat pilot.

Literary pseudonym

Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. His literary pseudonym in the river theme means "two fathoms".

First popular story

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Twain decided not to interfere in the ongoing events and moved to Carson City, Nevada. After failing to mine gold and silver, he was hired by a newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada. Twain wrote his first popular short story in 1865; it was called Calaveras County Frog Jumping.

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

In 1876, Mark wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which brought him worldwide fame. The book was extremely popular and has been translated into almost every language in the world. Later, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Tom Sawyer Abroad", and "Tom Sawyer - Detective" were published. The characters in Twain's stories are always well portrayed; the stories themselves are lifelike, and the plots are artfully constructed.

Other jobs

Between 1873 and 1889 Twain wrote several novels, including The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.Mark Twain was also a writer of satires and critiques that revealed the truth about the American way of life.

Death

He died in 1910.

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Mark Twain

early years

Mark Twain was born in the state of Missouri in the United States on November 30, 1835. He is considered the greatest humorist of 19th Century American literature. Twain's father was an unsuccessful lawyer. In 1839 Mark's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River where young Twain experienced the excitement and colorful sights of the waterfront. Like many authors of his day the future writer had little formal education. He didn't even finish secondary school. He started working at the age of 12. For two years Twain worked for his elder brother’s small newspaper both as a printer and reporter. In 1853 Mark left Hannibal in order to travel. On a trip to New Orleans he persuaded a riverboat pilot to teach him his skill. By the spring of 1859 Mark Twain was a licensed riverboat pilot.

Pen name

Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. His pen name means “two fathoms” in riverboat-talk.

First popular story

At the outbreak of the American Civil War Twain chose not to get involved and moved to Carson City, Nevada. After an unsuccessful attempt at gold and silver mining he joined the staff of a newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada. Twain wrote his first popular story in 1865; it was called The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

In 1876 Mark wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which brought him world fame. The book was extremely popular and translated into nearly every language of the world. Later were published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer the Detective. The characters of Twain's stories are always well-drawn; the stories themselves true-to-life and the plots are skillfully built up.

Other works

Between 1873 and 1889 Twain wrote several novels, including The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.Mark Twain was also the author of satires and critical pages revealing a good deal of the truth about the American way of life.

It was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrative English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, V.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There say the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battle-field, to remain for ever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweetness of his greatness--unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes unconscious unconscious fastened upon him,ness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing towards him.

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine--clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me--indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture,--"Privately--his glory is an accident-- just a product of incredible luck."

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater.

Some days later came the explanation of this strange remark, and this is what the Reverend told me.

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby completed his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he--why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. examined again, he will be flung over, of course; so it will be simple a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can.

I took him aside, and found that he knew a little of Caesar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar which I knew would be used. If you "ll believe me, he went through with flying colors on examination day! He went through on that purely superficial "cram", and got compliments, too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident--an accident not likely to happen twice in a century--he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill.

It was stupefying. Well, although through his course I stood by him, with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child; and he always saved himself--just by miracle, apparently.

Now of course the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on the line of questions which the examiner would be most likely to use, and then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result: to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got a perfect ovation in the way of compliments.

Sleep! There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity, and only to ease the poor youth"s fall--I never had dreamed of any such preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as the creator of Frankenstein Here was a wooden- head whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity.

The Crimean war had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I said to myself: we couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders?I could just barely have stood it if they had made him a cornet;but a captain--think of it!I thought my hair would turn white.

Consider what I did--I who so loved repose and inaction. I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, and away we went to the field.

And there--oh dear, it was awful. Blunders? why, he never did anything but blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow"s secret--everybody had him focused wrong, and necessarily misinterpreted his performance every time--consequently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius; they did honestly! His mildest blunders were enough to make a man in his right mind cry; and they did make me cry--and rage and rave too, privately. of his reputation! I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high that when discovery does finally come it will be like the sun falling out of the sky.

He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his superiors, until at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of.... down went our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next in rank! Now for it, said I; we "ll all land in Sheol in ten minutes, sure.

The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this critical moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy! "There you go!" I said to myself; "this is the end at last."

And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no; those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russia center in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrobert looked on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration, and delight; and sent right off for Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated him on the field in the presence of all the armies!

And what was Scoresby's blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his right hand for his left--that was all. An order had come to him to fall back and support our right; and instead he fell forward and went over the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvelous military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never fade while history books last.

He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. He has been pursued, day by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for half a generation; he has littered his military life with blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. look at his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is a record of some shouting stupidity or other; and, taken together, they are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can befall a man is to be born lucky.

Composition in English Biography of Mark Twain / The Biography of Mark Twain with translation into Russian

In English. The Biography of Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was a famous American writer and humorist. He was better known by his pen friend Mark Twain. Perhaps, everybody knows about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The author of these stories was Mark Twain. He was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30th, 1835. When he was four years old his family moved to Hannibal in Missouri. It was a port town on the Mississippi River, which inspired the fictional town in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. He was only eleven when his father died and he soon began working as a printer's apprentice and contributor of funny sketches. When he was 18 he left the town to work in New York, Philadelphia and some other large cities as a printer. Mark Twain traveled a lot. While being on the voyage to New Orleans he met Horace E. Bixby, who was a steamboat pilot and who later inspired a young author to become a pilot too. He soon obtained a steamboat pilot license. Until 1861 he worked as a pilot. He also persuaded his brother Henry to work together. In 1858 Henry died in a steamboat explosion. It was known that Mark Twain foresaw this accident in his dream. In 1876 he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". This book became popular not only with kids but also with adults. It was translated nearly into every language in the world. The book was such a success that in 1884 he wrote “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Later he also wrote “Tom Sawyer Abroad”, “Tom sawyer the Detective” etc. There were many other books written by Mark Twain but the stories about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn brought him world fame.

Translating to Russian language. Biography of Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was a famous American writer and humorist. He was better known by his pen name, Mark Twain. Perhaps everyone knows about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These stories were written by Mark Twain. He was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30th, 1835. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri. It was a port city on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was only eleven when his father died, and soon began working as a printer's assistant and comic sketcher. When he was 18, he left the city and went to work in New York, Philadelphia and other major cities as a printer. Mark Twain traveled a lot. While traveling to New Orleans, he met Horace E. Bixby, who was a steamboat pilot and who later inspired the young author to become a pilot as well. Soon he received a license to operate a steamship. Until 1861 he worked as a pilot. He also persuaded his brother Henry to work with him. In 1858, Henry died in a steamboat explosion. It was known that Mark Twain foresaw this accident in a dream. In 1876 he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This book has become popular not only among children, but also among adults. It has been translated into almost all languages ​​of the world. The book was such a success that in 1884 he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Later he also wrote "Tom Sawyer Abroad", "Tom Sawyer Detective", etc. There were many other books written by Mark Twain, but stories about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn brought him worldwide fame.