10 Intriguing, Little-Known Facts About Mark Twain

Copyright 2016 by Gary L. Pullman

Samuel Langhorne Clemens ("Mark Twain") at age 15

Mark Twain, the American author known for his wit, humor, and incisive social criticism, accomplished many things during his lifetime. He was a soldier, a printer's devil (assistant), a newspaper reporter, a riverboat pilot, a gold prospector, a novelist and a short story writer, a speaker and a lecturer, a world traveler, a husband, and a father. In a sense, he embodied the 19th-century American West, and, through his work, he introduced it, in all its wonders and all its horrors, to the rest of the country and to the world.

Even a celebrated life is not usually completely transparent to the public, and Twain's is no exception. In many ways, he was an admirable man of great integrity, but a few of his deeds weren't particularly deserving of praise. He did a few petty things as well, and he made some mistakes. He wasn't perfect. He'd probably have been the first to admit it.

The more we know of him, the more we can recognize his humanity and the more we can appreciate his genius. Here, then, are 10 intriguing, little-known facts about the celebrated writer.

10 Twain was a deserter.

Nevada Territory

At age 26, Twain joined the Confederate Army, but he served only two weeks before deserting. As a member of the Missouri State Guard in 1861, Lieutenant Twain was in the thick of the action. His unit, like the others of the Guard, was forced by Union troops to retreat. However, the Southern units were “regrouping” as they united with the “main Confederate force at Carthage, Jasper County.” There, on July 5, Missouri had scored a win against the Union army, and Confederate Major General Claiborne Jackson was preparing to take the battle to his opponents. Twain had two options: fight or flight. (LINK 1) He decided on the latter option, traveling west with his older brother Orion, whom President Abraham Lincoln had just appointed governor of the Nevada Territory. (LINK 2) Respectively, two of his literary works, “A Private History of a Campaign That Failed” and Roughing It, provide fictionalized accounts of these events.

9 Twain considered destroying Huckleberry Finn.

Huckleberry Finn

Although his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a sequel of sorts to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is recognized as a classic of both American and world literature, Twain considered destroying the manuscript of the novel if he bothered to finish it at all. Throughout his writing of his masterpiece, he seemed unenthusiastic, writing to his friend and fellow author William Dean Howells in July 1876 that he'd begun the manuscript “more to be working than anything else.” He said he liked “it only tolerably well” and confessed that he might set it aside “or burn the MS when it is done.” His lack of enthusiasm seems to be reflected in the fact that it took him just over seven years to complete it.

8 Twain had a habit of blaming himself for family members' deaths.

Henry Clemens

Although he'd had nothing to do with their deaths, Twain habitually blamed himself for the demise of his family members. When his brother Henry was killed in a boiler explosion aboard a steamboat, Twain faulted himself. He was serving as a factotum aboard the steamboat Pennsylvania, and he got into a violent fight with the vessel's pilot, Sam Brown. As a result, he was forbidden to return from New Orleans to St. Louis onboard the Pennsylvania. Henry, a passenger on Brown's boat, made the trip without his brother. Twain had to follow, two days behind, on the Alfred T. Lacey. Had Twain not gotten himself barred from Brown's vessel, he would have been aboard when the boiler exploded, he reasoned, and might have saved Henry. Although his reasoning seems questionable, since over 100 people on board the ill-fated steamboat were killed, Twain, nevertheless, blamed himself for Henry's death, “as he would blame himself for other deaths in his family,” including those of his infant son Langdon, who died of diphtheria, and his daughter Susy, who died of spinal meningitis.

7 Twain's father-in-law bought him and his bride a house.

Jervis Langdon, Twain's father-in-law, bought this home, Quarry Farm, as a wedding present for Twain and his daughter Olivia

Twain married Olivia “Livy” Langdon, the daughter of prosperous Jervis Langdon. Jervis had done well in the lumber business and did even better after buying coal-rich land. The coal business boomed when the operation of factories, following the start of the Civil War, fueled a need for the ore, and Jervis earned a fortune. Ultimately, he ownedcoal mines in “Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia” and “a huge rail and shipping network.”

Olivia Langdon Clemens, Twain's wife

Due to the differences in their social status, Jervis initially did not consider Twain a good prospect as his daughter's husband. However, Twain won him over, and, with Jervis' blessing, Twain and Livy were married on February 2, 1870. Jervis not only loaned Twain half “the $25,000 needed to buy the Buffalo Express” newspaper, but he also “gave the newlyweds a house in Buffalo.” Soon after Twain's wedding, Jervis died, leaving Olivia part of his million-dollar estate. (LINK 9)

6 One of Twain's neighbors was Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Harriet Beecher Stoew, Twain's neighbor and author of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Later, when Twain and his family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, one of their neighbors was fellow author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Supposedly, President Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting her, quipped, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

In his Autobiography, Twain remembers her this way:

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a near neighbor of ours in Hartford, with no fence between. In those days she made as much use of our grounds as of her own in pleasant weather. Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure. She wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular Irishwoman, assigned to her as a guardian. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes.

5 Twain humiliated one daughter and upstaged another.

Susy Clemens

Although Twain was an affectionate father and a good provider for his family, he defied one of his daughter's wishes and upstaged another. While she was a student at Bryn Mawr College, Susy began to carve out an identity of her own. She began using her given name, Olivia. She started to act and sing. She struck up friendships. Twain, beginning to feel “isolated” and estranged from “his favorite daughter,” arranged, through the school's president, to speak at the college. Afraid her father's telling of the story “The Golden Arm” would not go over well with her classmates, who might regard the story as “déclassé>,” she begged him not to tell it. He “promised her that he would not. And then he did,” launching “into it as the finishing flourish of his talk.” His daughter “sat in disbelief,” feeling “shocked and humiliated.” At the conclusion of his speech, she “ran from the chapel, found an empty classroom . . . threw herself into a chair, and wept over her father's betrayal.”

Clara Clemens (foreground) was upstaged at her wedding by her father.

On another occasion, he upstaged his daughter Clara—at her own wedding. It was her day, but he made it his, wearing his Oxford gown so he'd be the center of attention, rather than Clara. The gown, “set off in bright scarlet . . . made him the center of attention wherever he wore it, even (and inappropriately) at his daughter Clara's wedding.”

4 Twain published the memoirs of U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant's autobiography, published by Twain's company.

Twain's father-in-law was generous in helping Twain get established in life, but Twain also earned a fortune in his own right by writing one bestseller after another, by often taking a personal hand in his publisher's work, by lecturing on his work, and by zealously guarding his copyrights.

U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant

In fact, he would eventually own his own publishing company,”bearing the name of his nephew and business agent, Charles L. Webster.” He persuaded former U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant to let him publish his memoirs, after convincing Grant that Frank Bliss' American Publishing Company, which Grant had intended to have publish his autobiography, was all but cheating him of his fair share of the book's likely profits. According to Twain biographer Ron Powers, under Bliss' original terms, had Grant signed with Bliss to publish the book, Grant's family would have earned “royalties of only 10 percent,” with nothing in advance and with part of the sum to go to the payment of incidental expenses associated with the publishing of the book.

Grant's wife, Julia

Twain promised Grant that he'd “get them [Grant's memoirs] published, market them, and collect enough royalties in the process to pay to either Grant or his wife at least $200,000. True to his word, Twain saw to it that Grant’s memoirs were published, and that all of its royalties were paid.” His widow received “over $450,000,” which is equivalent, when adjusted for inflation, to approximately $12 million today. In addition, Twain had offered Grant a $10,000 advance, but Grant had refused it “on principle.”

3 Twain made, lost, and again made a fortune.

On the sale of Grant's memoirs alone, Twain estimated he'd earned $200,000, which was a fortune in itself. Adjusted for inflation, this sum equals over $5 million today.

Paige Typesetting Machine

Unfortunately, Twain had invested heavily in inventor James W. Paige's “automatic typesetting machine.” The complex contraption was constantly breaking down. Nevertheless, Twain, convinced that the machine would be popular once it was perfected, continued to throw good money after bad, ultimately spending $200,000 of his own money on the invention. In 1894, he was forced to declare bankruptcy.

Henry Huttelston Rogers, Twain's benefactor

Twain had made a fortune, and he had lost a fortune. Now, he was determined to make a second fortune. Four years later, with the help of his staunch friend, financier Henry Huttelston Rogers, a former vice president and director of Standard Oil, Twain paid off all his debts and amassed another fortune. As Twain traveled the world lecturing, Rogers managed his debt. By the end of 1898, Twain's wife determined that the family had $107,000 in the bank, and Twain's copyrights were worth an additional $200,000, or about $8,481,878, total, today, adjusted for inflation, not counting his house and furniture.

2 Twain patented several inventions.

Twain was intrigued by inventors, and he tried his hand at inventing a thing or two himself. One was “an elastic strap for pants,” which he had patented. Fred Kaplan, a Twain biographer, describes it as “a version of a vest strap, somewhat like suspenders, to attach a man's pants to his vest in order to keep the trousers in place in an age before zippers, belts, and modern appliances.” A rival invented a similar device, and he and Twain “did battle” over their claim to would-be fame as inventors. Nothing came of the invention, though; it “never earned him a penny.”

Twain's Memory Builder game

Another time, to occupy his leisure hours, Twain “devised . . . a self-pasting scrapbook.” Its pages, “coated with a gluelike substance,” could be 'activated' by a light application of moisture, page by page, as the need arose.” After Twain invested some money in the invention, it did earn a profit, although only over a period of years, but it was the only one that ever did.

After contriving “to play [a] history game with cards and a cribbage board,” Twain hit on yet another idea for an invention. This one was a memory game, which he thought could be a “moneymaker.” His publisher and his brother Orion created a “prototype,” and Twain considered selling shares in it, but, ultimately, the game proved to be “unmarketable.”

1 Twain can be seen at home, on film.

Thomas Edison's film of Twain with his daughters at Stormfield

Many people have seen photographs of Twain in his early, mid, and late years. Few may be aware, however, that a film of the famous author exists. The one and only silent film footage, taken in 1909 by ThomasEdison, at Twain's estate,” Stormfield, can be viewed at Smithsonian.com. The flickering images of the one-minute, 47-second film show Twain in his signature white suit, cigar in hand, standing in the doorway to his mansion's front entrance. The camera speed is a bit too fast, and it makes Twain's gait resemble that of a penguin as, puffing great clouds of smoke, he walks along his house (twice, apparently because of a loop in the film). Text appears on the screen, announcing the situation: “With daughters, Clara and Jean, at 'Stormfield', Redding, Connecticut, 1909.” When the film resumes, Twain is seated at a patio table with his daughters. He joins them for tea. It's a blustery day, and, when she's brought a hat, one of his daughters must use several long pins to secure it to her hair. Twain, Clara, and Jean then rise, and the film ends as they take their leave.