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How Does Mark Twain Influence American Literature

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Through this American Literature course we have studied many authors over the entire length and breadth of American Literature. Yet only one author out of all of these may be chosen to be the subject of this paper. I tried to find the author who had been the most influential to American writing. This author 's influence could not be limited to the past, but had to be extended even to today. After some searching, I concluded that the most influential writer in American Literature whose influence can still be felt today was Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). This influence was created mostly in the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....It …show more content…
Mark Twain once said of his brother Orion, “He hasn 't the business talent enough to carry on a peanut stand.” (Fanning, 61) In the re-election Orion made a series of blunders that turned him from a guaranteed win to lacking more any more than thirteen votes. He accomplished but little for a long period of months. Then he terminated his employment with the Enterprise and signed a contract with the Sacramento Daily Union to go wherever the paper sent him and send travel letters for the paper to print in its pages. The paper sent him to the Sandwich (now Hawaiian) Islands. He soon filled his contract to the paper and traveled from place to place with no obvious aim in mind. He soon was back in California and hatched an idea that changed his life. He decided to lecture in San Francisco about his trip to the Sandwich Islands. Humorous and instantly popular, Twain discover a hidden talent in himself. He toured much of Northern California and some towns farther east with his lectures and soon attained some fame in the …show more content…
His experiences there lead to his book The Gilded Age. Twain 's income from his book Roughing It, allowed the family to build a new house. He returned to England while the house was being built, this time with his family. Soon Clara, the second daughter in the Clemens family, was born at the home of Livy 's adopted sister. Their home finished, the Clemens happily moved in. Twain switched gears and dropped lecturing and increased in writing novels. He published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876. The same year he began work on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Prince and the Pauper. Jean Clemens, the third and final daughter in the Clemens family was born in 1880. He took his family to Europe for a stay of seventeen

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