In 1864 Clemens moved to San Francisco and worked for various newspapers. When his short story “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” was published and widely circulated in 1865 by the Saturday Press of New York, Mark Twain became a nationally known humorist. He gave his first public lecture in October 1866 and embarked on a lecture tour in the western states to make money and promote his career. Clemens had a natural talent for telling stories and making speeches. He would lecture on and off for the rest of his life.
In 1867, Clemens set sail as a traveling correspondent on a grand tour of Europe and the Mideast for the
San Francisco Alto California. His reports of this journey later became his first best-selling book,
Innocents Abroad,
Innocents Abroad from the Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection
The original Mark Twain Collection of The State Historical Society of Missouri began in 1901 with the acquisition of historical Missouri materials in the private collection of Francis Asbury Sampson of Sedalia. Within the Sampson Collection were a number of rare editions and foreign translations of Mark Twain novels.
In 1902, Clemens visited the University of Missouri, Columbia, and donated a twenty-two-volume edition of his collected works to the Society.
During the next two decades, the collection continued to grow slowly through purchases and gifts. Then, in 1923, the Society purchased the fine Mark Twain library of 135 books, over 1,153 cartoons, and 122 clippings collected by Purd B. Wright of Kansas City. In 1936, after the death of George A. Mahan, The State Historical Society of Missouri's president for eleven years, the Mark Twain Collection was officially named the "Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection" in commemoration of Mahan and his work in memorializing Mark Twain. Among Mahan's philanthropic activities was his and his family's gift of the Mark Twain boyhood home to the city of Hannibal.
The Society continued to add to the collection through gifts and purchases, and by 1948 the collection had grown to 480 volumes and also contained scrapbooks and additional cartoons. New items are still added to the collection, and by 2006 it had grown to over 1,120 volumes. The books cover a wide variety of topics: first editions and reprints of Twain novels, analytic views of his writings by others, bibliographies, photographic essays, biographies of Twain and his family, autobiographical writings, and descriptions of Twain's world, homes, and travels.
[Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection, SHS]
published in 1869. After this journey, Clemens met
Olivia Langdon
Clemens married Olivia “Livy” Louise Langdon (1845–1904) on February 2, 1870 in Elmira, New York. Clemens went on a world tour in 1895 with his wife, Olivia, seated on the left, and his daughter Clara, seated on the right. Two years later, Twain’s writings regarding the trip were published his non-fiction travelogue, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World.
[SHS 027827]
of
Elmira, New York.
Quarry Farm, Elmira, New York.
Samuel Clemens and his family also lived for extended periods of time at Quarry Farm in Elmira, New York. This house belonged to Olivia Clemens’s adopted sister, Susan Crane. All three of Clemens’s daughters were born in this house.
[SHS 027823]
The octagonal study at Quarry Farm.
[SHS 027822]
The octagonal study at Quarry Farm.
[SHS 027819]
Mark Twain at work in his study at Quarry Farm.
[SHS 027821]
They married in 1870 and soon settled in Hartford, Connecticut. Together they had four
children:
Samuel and Olivia Clemens’s children were Langdon (November 7, 1870–June 2, 1872), Olivia Susan “Susy” (May 19, 1872–August 18, 1896), Clara Langdon (June 8, 1874–November 19, 1962), and Jane Lampton “Jean” (July 26, 1880–December 24, 1909).
a son, Langdon, who died as an infant, and three daughters—Susy, Clara, and Jean.
It was at their house in Hartford that Clemens turned from journalism to writing the books and novels that made him famous. In 1872 he published Roughing It, an autobiographical account of his years in the West. He published
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
[Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection]
in 1876 and his masterpiece,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Samuel Clemens founded his own publishing company, Charles L. Webster and Company. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, published in 1885, was the company’s first publication. Clemens’s company also published the two-volume bestseller The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant after Grant’s death in 1885. The publishing company went bankrupt in 1894.
[Mahan Memorial Mark Twain Collection]
in 1884. Clemens set both of these novels in his native Missouri and drew heavily on his boyhood memories of growing up in Hannibal. He examined American culture on the edge of the frontier and dealt seriously with such issues as slavery, poverty, and class differences. Clemens’s natural wit and keen observations of human nature—developed and perfected during his years as a journalist—found full expression in his fiction.
moved to nearby Hannibal. His father thought Hannibal would be a more prosperous place for his business. Sam spent his childhood in this port village nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River. His memories of growing up swimming, fishing, playing pirates, and pulling pranks there made this small Missouri town world famous.
.jpg){kind=link}
