13. Mark Twain
Samuel L. Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. As well as being a hugely popular author, Clemens worked as a riverboat pilot, a journalist, a lecturer, and also as an entrepreneur and an inventor. Undoubtedly, he was most successful as a writer, authoring American classics such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. These books made Clemens a national treasure and brought him fame. Speaking of Clemens contribution to American literature, author Ernest Hemingway said that “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
However, Clemens’ success as an author was not matched by his business ventures. He set up a publishing house that, ultimately, went bankrupt. He also suffered unimaginable tragedy in his familial life too. When Clemens and his wife Livy’s son Langdon was just a toddler, he contracted diphtheria and died. The loss of his daughter, Susy, to spinal meningitis, when she was aged just 24, left Clemens heartbroken. The pain of the loss was compounded by the fact that Twain was abroad when she died. Their daughter Jean, who had severe epilepsy, died of a heart attack at the young age of 29.
His beloved wife Livy, whom he was married to for 34 years, died in 1904 after a long illness. The love for his wife was reflected in the way he wrote about her, “Wheresoever she was, there is Eden.” Writing to a friend shortly after his marriage to Livy, Clemens wrote, “I have … the only sweetheart I have ever loved … she is the best girl, and the sweetest, and gentlest, and the daintiest, and she is the most perfect gem of womankind.”
Understandably, having suffered such personal tragedy during his lifetime, Clemens’ writing became darker and more pessimistic towards the end of his life. Hamlin Hill, an American author who wrote several books about Clemens and his writings, said of Clemens, that “much of the last years of his life, he lived in hell.” While Clemens was struggling with his own personal demons in private, the last fifteen years of his life were spent being publicly lauded as one of the great living American writers. Clemens received honorary degrees from Oxford and Yale and from 1895-1896, he embarked on a successful worldwide lecture tour which helped to pay off his debts. Clemens died at his home in Redding, Connecticut on April 21, 1910.