The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

MARK TWAIN was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. He left school at the age of 12, was apprenticed to a printer and then went on to become a Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, humorist, travel writer, and publisher. Twain first won fame with his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," published in 1865. The Adventures of Huckle- berry Finn was published in 1884. It is mainly on this work that Twain's literary reputation rests, for in it he created Huck Finn, one of fiction's most memorable characters. Although he made a fortune from his writing. Twain's involvement in various failed business schemes led him close to bankruptcy, and towards the end of his life he was forced to go oa lecture tours to pay his debts. Twain died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910. --jacket