Lauded as the ‘greatest American humorist of his age’ and called ‘the father of American literature’ by William Faulkner, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. He authored 28 books and numerous sketches and short stories. in 1839, his family shifted to Hannibal, a developing port city along the banks of river Mississippi, which later provided the setting for the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, two of his most remarkable books. the Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) features one of the best-loved characters in American fiction. it is suggestive of the life in the towns by the Mississippi river.
Mark Twain was awarded an honorary doctorate in letters by the Oxford University in 1907. He died on April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut, after suffering a heart attack.