He died the day following the comet’s subsequent return. Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley’s Comet, and he predicted that he would “go out with it,” too. Twain chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full, though he had no responsibility to do this under the law. In the wake of these financial setbacks he filed for protection from his creditors via a bankruptcy filing, and with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers eventually overcame his financial troubles.

Though Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he invested in ventures that lost a great deal of money, notably the Paige Compositor, which failed because of its complexity and imprecision. The short story brought international attention, even being translated to classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He referred humorously to his singular lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for theVirginia City Territorial Enterprise. In 1865, his humorous story, “ The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was published, based on a story he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp California where he had spent some time as a miner. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada.

After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion’s newspaper. Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), best known to the world by his pen-name Mark Twain, was an author and humorist, noted for his novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called “the Great American Novel”, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), among many others.

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