Twain

            Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born two months premature and weighing only five pounds everyone thought he would die within the next few days. John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens gave birth to him on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Samuel's mother felt so helpless about her son's odds against life that his father actually named him because she did not want to be too attached to him when he died. However, he never did die. Many people believed that he lived was because of the super natural powers that Halley's Comet that passed in the sky on the day he was born. The presence of the comet also led some to believe he had supernatural powers himself. To back that claim up, one night in August Sam rose up from bed still asleep. He walked over and "plucked at the coverlet of his sister's bed, a gesture associated in the Missouri folk-mind with imminent death."(Hoffman) Margaret, his sister, died a few days later. The family thought that Sam had foreseen the event.
             Later that year he and his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a village on the Mississippi River. This is where he "experienced the excitement of the colorful steamboats that docked at the town wharf, brining comedians, singers, gamblers, swindlers, slave dealers, and assorted other river travelers."(Worldbook) It was here in Hannibal where Samuel Clemens received his first experience with literary works by working in the local print shop. Shortly after Sam's father died, he went to work with his brother, Orion. The produced The Hannibal Journal. Part of Samuel's duty was to submit reports, poems, and humorous sketches. "A Gallant Fireman" was Clemens's first known published sketch. Like many authors of his day, Clemens had very little book education. He did not attend high school or college. Doing hands on activities at print shops and newspaper offices is where Clemens gained most of his education. .
             In 1953 Samuel left Hannibal and stayed in St.