Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, the model for the river town in both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He apprenticed with a printer, worked as a typesetter, piloted riverboats on the Mississippi (material he later used in Life on the Mississippi, 1883) and went west to Nevada, where he failed at mining and turned to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. His 1865 story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” brought him international attention, and travel books followed: The Innocents Abroad (1869), from a five-month cruise on the Quaker City, and Roughing It (1872), from his years in the West.

His novels include The Gilded Age (1873, with Charles Dudley Warner), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (December 1884 in Britain, February 1885 in the US), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). He lost much of his fortune on investments such as the Paige Compositor, a typesetting machine, declared bankruptcy, and later paid his creditors in full. From 1901 until his death he was vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League. The first volume of his autobiography appeared in 2010, a century after his death, as he had wished.

Begin with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Set in St. Petersburg, a fictional town based on Hannibal, it follows Tom through a run of boyhood adventures and introduces Huckleberry Finn, so it is the natural setup. Then read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, its direct sequel and the book most often called the Great American Novel. Huck tells the story himself in vernacular English, which takes a few chapters to settle into; read an unabridged edition.

To see Twain beyond Tom and Huck, try Roughing It for his years in the West or Life on the Mississippi for his riverboat days. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is the next novel to try after those two.