the river told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished
secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice."
No other literary figure - nor artist, musician, or legendary character - has been as closely tied to the Mississippi than Mark Twain. After the Civil War halted his career as a steamboat pilot, Samuel Clemens turned to journalism and literature. He chose the pen name "mark twain," a river measurement that signified two fathoms (12 feet), a safe depth for steamboats.
Clemens' most autobiographical account of the inhabitants and scenes of Hannibal, Missouri, was Life on the Mississippi, written in 1883. Yet his childhood adventures had been most popularly recreated earlier in 1876 for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Using regional dialects and deadpan humor, Mark Twain broke all the traditional European rules of writing to create a uniquely American novel.
Later in 1884 in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain satirized the dark side of
human nature - greed, corruption, alcoholism, and especially racism
- by using a 14-year-old boy as narrator. 'Huck Finn' is a raw
yet sweet story of Huck's education in life taught by Jim, a runaway
slave. Filled with racist attitudes, 'Huck Finn' remains one
of the most antiracist novels ever written.
I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to
have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at
how much the old man had learnt in seven years."