The $30,000 Bequest and other Stories

Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30,1835 and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, a small town on the Mississippi River. But that's not exactly true. For Mark Twain's legal name was Samuel Clemens, and he was always just plain Sam to family and friends. Mark Twain didn't exist until 1863 when Sam adopted this pen-name while working as a newspaper reporter in Nevada. Soon Mark Twain, author, was writing humorous stories and thought-pieces for readers across the nation. Meanwhile, Mark Twain, lecturer, was cracking-up audiences with finely-polished stories, delivered to perfection. Blessed with remarkable talent for both written and oral story-telling, talents he cultivated with diligent practice, Mark Twain became a famous author and lecturer almost all at once. It didn't take long before Mark Twain's fame spread internationally nor before it became permanent as gold with the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884. Mark Twain spoke and wrote in a quaint, authentic American dialect with pride and self-assurance at a time when almost all authors thought they needed to stick with high-tone English to earn respect and acclaim. Yet there was something even more crucial to Mark Twain's fame than his innovative literary style; he perfected a method to make people laugh. A serious man at heart, Mark Twain took serious subjects and situations and exaggerated them to a point where potential drama turned into hilarious comedy. His perfection of this comic method caused tears of laughter to wet the cheeks of countless listeners and readers in his day, as it has for generations of readers ever since. Mark Twain became and remains an international treasure mostly because he was so darn funny. After a long and abundant career, Mark Twain succumbed to heart disease and died in Redding, Connecticut on April 21, 1910. Many millions of fans world-wide mourned his death.