Chapters From My AutobiographyChapters From My Autobiography

Samuel Langhorne Clemens - who wrote under the pseudonym Mark Twain - was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. He spent his childhood in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal, Missouri, leaving home in 1853. His brief career as a riverboat pilot was ended by the Civil War, wherein he served as a Confederate irregular. He then traveled to Nevada to strike it rich, and when that plan failed went on to achieve renown as a deft humorist, masterful satirist, great novelist and memorable travel writer, using the name "Mark Twain" - a river pilot's measurement of depth. Collected here is a wonderful selection of anecdotes from Mark Twain's life, as told with candour by the great man himself. This book is part memoir, part philosophical text, part study in human behaviour, from one of America's greatest literary treasures. Also included is Twain's popular short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" .