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Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Mark Twain was born as Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and grew up nearby the Mississippi River. His father died in 1847, leaving the family with little financial support, and Clemens became a printer's apprentice, eventually working for his brother, Orion, who had set himself up as a newspaper publisher. Through all his years in the printshop, Clemens tried his hand at composing humorous pieces. By 1856, he received a commission from the Keokuk Saturday Post for a series of comical letters reporting on his planned travels to South America. But on his way down the Mississippi, Clemens temporarily abandoned his literary ambitions to fulfill a dream he had since he was a boy. He apprenticed himself to become a riverboat pilot, and spent the next three years navigating the Mississipi River.
When the Civil War closed traffic on the river in the spring of 1861, Clemens returned to Orion again. In 1862 he was employed as a writer by the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, signing for the first time his works "Mark Twain."
With "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," published in 1865 by The Saturday Press of New York his style made its first appearance. In 1867 Clemens reported on a grand tour of Europe and the Mideast in Innocents Abroad (1869) which later became his first best-seller.
On his return to the United States, he married Olivia Langdon, and established with her in Harford, Connecticut, where Clemens finally turned from journalism to literature. The element of self-conscious irony would become the hallmark of Clemens' best work, especially evident in the novels set in his boyhood world beside the Mississippi River, Tom Sawyer (1876) and his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Toward the end of his life, Clemens passed through a period of deep depression, due to his wife's and two of his daughter's death. He died at his home in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910.


che müten feychi kujiñ ta kelüwepelu. Ka feygeygün müten chumgeclu ta ñi kelüweken
che ta niey epe weza füxa noyelkaye: fey ti ayen
fenxen che mew ta xürlen ya ta che müley ñi günezuamael
feyti zugugen ta feyti kewün ta ajkütulu ti pilu wej ak pelu ti xawma
kiñe che küme chijka ta chijkatunolu nielay kiñe wüne xekalen rume feyti kim chijkatunolu mew
koylatunolmi mülelay chem rume mi tukulpatunuael
mülefuy ta akuael ta mi kayñe egu ta wenüy, ta mi kuxantul piwkeaetew, kiñe ta mi zajuntukuaetew kagelu ta mi zuguyelpayaetew
rüf zugu may ta kiñen ta yiñ ta falintuken. Xapümnieafiyiñ
weche gelu inche kom tukulpakefun. Müle no chi zugu rume
xemoleam ta che müley ñi pekan inual ta fijke iyaqel, ñi pekan pütokonuael ka chem pekanke küzaw rume ñi chumal
zoy ayiñmafel ñi welulmageael ñi chumgen ta kake che