Samuel Clemens or Mark Twain his pen name for which he is better known by is considered one of the greatest American writers and philosophers of all time. His works are famous worldwide and nearly everybody can name at least one of his works. Some of his most famous works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince and The Pauper. Samuel Clemens lived a long life to the age of seventy-four, wrote many superb novels, raised an adoring family, lived in various locations around the country, and had a wonderful, loving relationship with his wife.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 to John Marshall and Jane Lampton in the rural town of Florida, Missouri. The family was a good old-fashioned southern family. John Marshall, a lawyer by profession, moved the family to Hannibal, in 1839 when Samuel was just three years old, after he lost faith in Florida becoming a productive metropolis. This small town on the Mississippi River is believed to be the base setting in many of Mark Twain's novels, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Samuels schooling was brief and he never took school too seriously or put his full efforts into his schoolwork. Samuel dropped out of school in 1847 at the age of twelve when his father, John Marshall, died and it became necessary for him to go to work to help the family out financially. Soon after his fathers death young Samuel became apprenticed to a printer named Ament. Ament paid Samuel with clothes and a place to live. He remained with Ament for a few years, until his older brother Orion bought out a small newspaper in Hannibal in 1850 and Samuel went to work on that. All the work for the paper was done in the Clemens's household and the two brothers ran it, with young Samuel doing the majority of the writing. This paper was by no means a great paper but it was sufficient and every year seemed to make enough money to support the Clemens family.