Dear audience, this evening we'll talk with a scholar who has been doing research into Mark Twain's works for 12 years. Welcome, Mr. Waton.
Hi, everyone! Good evening!
What would you like to talk about the great writer? Maybe some details that we don't quite know.
OK, Mark Twain, who traveled quite a lot, often because circumstances, usually financial circumstances forced him to. He was born in Florida Missouri in 1835, and moved to Hannibal, Missouri with his family when he was about four years old. Most people think he was born in Hannibal, but that isn't true.
Yes, I didn't know it if you don't tell us this evening.
Well, after his father died when he was about twelve, Twain worked in Hannibal for a while and then left so he could earn more money. He worked for a while as a typesetter on various newspapers, and then got a job as a river pilot on the Mississippi.
Did Twain like that job?
He loved this job, and many of his books show it. The river job didn't last however, because of the outbreak of the Civil War. To avoid joining the army, he went west-California. Twain worked as a gold digger without much luck.
That's interesting!
But he did succeed as a writer, once that happened, Twain traveled around the country giving lectures and earning enough money to go to Europe. Twain didn't travel much the last ten years of his life, and he didn't publish much either. Somehow his travel inspired his writings. Like many other popular writers, Twain derived much of the materials for his writing from the wealth and diversity of his own experience.