From predicting his death, and stealing names, to loving animals, there was much more to the Great American author Mark Twain than you might think.
Mark Twain is praised as one of the best writers to ever have come out of the United States, and it’s quite clear why. The man wrote classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and ‘The Great American Novel’, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But there was much more to the world-renowned author than people think.
If you’d like to really know the man behind the words, here are some of the most interesting facts about Mark Twain.
Mark Twain Wasn’t His Real Name
Mark Twain was actually born Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was born and named in 1835, and it wasn’t until many years later that he picked up Mark Twain as a pen name.
Supposedly, the pen name refers to two fathoms (12 feet) in boat slang. There are lots of theories as to where Twain picked up the name, but according to one source, he did eventually admit to stealing it from a captain called Isiah Sellers who had used it at the New Orleans Picayune.
There is another theory, or rather, urban legend, that Mark Twain used to walk into a bar and shout out “mark twain”, instructing the bartender to mark twain (or two) drinks on the wall to help keep track of the bar tab.
He Was Never Expected to Live
Samuel was born two months prematurely and because of this was gravely unwell for much of his childhood. He was sickly and frail right up until he was around 7 years old.
His family were never particularly well off, and they often had to move around for work. This made it hard to find any proper medical care and piled the odds against Samuel and his 6 other siblings, out of whom only 3 survived to adulthood.
Twain Was Once a Miner
Before Mark Twain found himself a place as a writer, he’d tried his hand at a lot of careers. One of which, was mining.
He worked as a miner in Nevada when he and his brother fled to avoid the American Civil War. Unfortunately, the war had dramatically impacted the mining industry.
He Was a Cat Lover
The world-famous author absolutely loved cats. He was known to ‘rent’ cats to keep him company when he had to travel, and was so much of a cat-lover that at one point in his life, he had 19!
When Mark Twain was asked about his love for felines, he retorted that he found the furry four-legged creatures better than humans, saying that “if man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
Mark Twain Predicted His Own Death
It sounds completely ridiculous, but it’s true. Mark Twain was born around the time of Halley’s Comet in 1835, and, when it was due to shine again, he said: “It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’ Oh, I am looking forward to that.” And, just as he predicted, Twain passed on April 21, 1910, one day after Halley’s Comet was visible again.
There Are No Living Descendants of Mark Twain
Twain married Olivia Langdon in 1870 and had four children, but one died as a toddler, and the other two passed away in early adulthood. Olivia then passed in 1904, and Mark later in 1910.
Their surviving child, Clara, lived until she was 88 and then passed away in 1962. She had only one child, Nina, who unfortunately passed away in 1966. She had no children, meaning that by 1966, the line of Samuel Clemens ended.
It Took Mark Twain Seven Years to Write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Following the incredible success of the first novel in 1876, Twain started to work on the sequel, but after writing 400 pages he was unhappy with what he’d come up with. So much so that he told a friend he liked it ‘only tolerably well’ and said he might ‘pigeonhole or burn’ the manuscript!
He ended up putting the novel on hold for several years before finally finishing it in 1883.
Mark Twain Was Briefly Part of a Confederate Militia
Perhaps the wildest fact, the author joined the Marion Rangers, a pro-Confederate militia when he was 25, just as the Civil War started. His family had owned a slave when he was a boy, he never reported to have particularly strong ideological ideas either way.
The stint in the group was short, as after two weeks there was a rumor that the Union force was headed their way. The group disbanded, and the next month, Twain left Missouri and fled to Nebraska.
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Migz
Millie Ramm
Millie has been writing since she was a child, and has spent more time with her nose in books than anywhere else. She has been ghostwriting novels and editing for the past few years, and when not working she is curled up with her cats, looking for her next read.
