Author(s): Mark Twain

Classics

This is Mark Twain's description of life on the Mississippi River, with observations and anecdotes about the culture and society along the river valley. It includes character sketches, historical facts, information and reminiscences of Twain's boyhood and experiences as a steam-boat pilot. Part travel book, part autobiography, and part social commentary, "Life on the Mississippi" is a memoir of the cub pilot's apprenticeship, a record of Twain's return to the river and to Hannibal as an adult, a meditation on the harsh vagaries of nature, and a study of the varied and sometimes violent activities engaged in by those who live on the river's shores.

About the author:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer and lecturer. Twain's greatest contribution to American literature is generally considered to be his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.