Mark Twain facts

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Mark Twain traveled extensively and once said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth..."

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Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president, was penniless in old age and wrote a book of memoirs so his wife could live off of the royalties. Mark Twain heard the best offer was 10% and immediately offered the former president 75%. The book was a success, giving Grant's widow about $450,000 in royalties.

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Mark Twain was born on the day when Halley’s Comet flew by earth. He said “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.” Halley’s Commet next appeared on April 21, 1910 which is the day Mark Twain died
Ulysses S. Grant was broke and dying of throat cancer, when Mark Twain offered an unheard of 75% of royalties to his widow for him to write his memoirs. Julia Grant received $450,000 dollars from royalties.
The word "literally" has been used figuratively for hundreds of years. Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain all used it for hyperbole.
Mark Twain, noted abolitionist and women's rights activist, paid for the schooling of black people, including paying one man's tuition for Yale Law School.
Ulysses S. Grant's autobiography was sold by 10,000 agents, many of whom were former Union soldiers who canvassed the northern states while wearing their old uniforms. It was a method devised by Mark Twain, the publisher. It made a fortune for Grant's widow, who received a 75% royalty.
Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain were friends. They met at a club in New York and struck up a friendship. Tesla even helped Twain with some gastrointestinal issues by having Twain stand on an oscillating platform for 90 seconds, causing him to run for the bathroom!
Mark Twain hated Jane Austen with a passion, saying, "Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone".
Mark Twain called The Book of Mormon "Chloroform in Print"
Mark Twain initially supported American Imperialism, but, after discovering America's true motives in the Philippine–American War by reading the Treaty of Paris, he changed his position, saying "And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

mark twain facts — What's mark twain's real name?

Why mark twain is famous?

You can easily fact check why did mark twain change his name by examining the linked well-known sources.

The pen name, Mark Twain, is steamboat slang for 12 feet of water.

Mark Twain disliked Jane Austen's work enough to say "every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone" - source

Mark Twain predicted his own death in 1909 "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." He died in 1910, a day after the comet returned. - source

Mark Twain hated Jane Austen's books and summarized his opinion of her by saying "every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone!”

Mark Twain hated Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice": "Every time I read [it] I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone." - source

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Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs after being commissioned by Mark Twain. After his presidency, Grant had lost all his savings to a shady investment partner, leaving his family nearly destitute. Grant died days after finishing, but sold over 300,000 copies and earned his family over $450,000.

How old was mark twain when he died?

Mark Twain once said, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Mark Twain discouraged the use of exclamation marks because it is like laughing at your own joke

Mark Twain was born and died in the same years that Halley’s Comet flew by the Earth. Twain said, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." He died of a heart attack day after the Comet's closest approach in 1910.

Mark Twain based the character Huckleberry Finn on a real person named Tom Blankenship. Tom was four years older than Twain, and they knew each other growing up in Hannibal, Missouri.

When did mark twain die?

Mark Twain wore a signature white suit most of his life but in his autobiography he said “I would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks and velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and so would every sane man I have ever known...”

Mark Twain once said, " the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Biblelying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me."

Mark Twain patented under his real name Samuel Clemens the "Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (ADSG) or "suspenders" in 1871

Despite making dozens of recordings of his voice on wax cylinders, no known recordings of Mark Twain's voice are known to have survived.

Mark Twain was incredibly well traveled and wrote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth..."

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Mark Twain was a proponent of equal rights. He formed clubs for young women to attend the theatre, to play games, and write correspondence with him. At his death, he said that his time with these girls was his "life's chief delight".

For most of history, smiling in a painting or photo was considered radical, and even Mark Twain once wrote, "A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever"

Mark Twain blew the bulk of his book profits and his wife's inheritance investing in the failed Paige typesetting machine, the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $8million USD, which lead him to file bankruptcy in 1894.

Nikola Tesla once "shook the poop out" of a constipated Mark Twain with an experiment.

Helen Keller and Mark Twain were good friends, and he got his rich friends to pay for her education at Radcliffe.

Mark Twain was obsessed with technology, writing science fiction including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court which featured time travel. He also had a close personal friendship with Nikola Tesla and said "a man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds".

Mark Twain Was Born and Died in the Same Years That Halley’s Comet Flew By the Earth

Mark Twain had a near fatal heart attack in 1898 after watching a belly dancer's routine.

How Samuel Clements chose his pen name. He used to be a Riverboat Pilot in Hannibal, MO. It was common to have a crew member throw a line out from the front of the boat to measure the depth shouting “Mark Twain” if it was a safe depth. A Mark is the same as a Fathom (6 feet) and Twain means 2.

Mark Twain left instructions for his autobiography to be published 100 years after his death so he could speak his "whole frank mind". Two volumes have already been published since 2010 and the third one is expected to be published in the fall of 2015

When Mark Twain started learning German, he noted humourously "In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl."

Two mediums transcribed Mark Twain's alleged last book via ouija board, titled "Jap Herron". Clara Clemens blocked the publication to stop it from smearing her father's good name.

In 1889, Mark Twain predicted the nature of trench warfare. He pitted 53 men versus 30,000 knights. Crouching behind minefields and electrified fences, and manning Gatling guns that “vomit death,” the time-traveler and his companions mow down rank upon gleaming rank of their armored assailants.

Mark Twain published two dime novels, Tom Sawyer - Detective, and Tom Sawyer Abroad, to cash in on the popularity of pulp fiction and Jules Verne-style science fiction, some two decades after the title character's debut

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Mark Twain. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Mark Twain so important!