Picture it: 1866. No television, no radio, no internet, and no telephones. People are shivering in the streets. The pigeons have revolted and taken over the White House. President Andrew Johnson is being held hostage by the pigeons. Johnson issues a desperate plea, saying it would be "coo coo to disobey our new pigeon overlords." The pigeons do not appreciate the pun.
...Okay, most of that was fake, and clearly we have some issues with pigeons.
However, the entertainment sources we know and love today? They were a long ways away. The only real way to get entertainment back then was to go see it live. Lectures were a popular pastime, and one in which Twain excelled. His comedic delivery was a hit with live audiences, and he kicked off a lecturing career that would span the next few decades and rival any stand-up special currently on Netflix. These lectures, along with his books, made Twain a celebrity.
In 1869, Twain published his first book, The Innocents Abroad, a nonfiction account of his travels to Europe. The book introduced readers to Twain's trademark brand of wit and observation. "The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate a-- he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate a--," he wrote. "If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother."16
The book was a bestseller, and shows that even back then, people were insufferable after traveling abroad.
Like...we get it. You went to Barthhhelona. Big whoop.
In 1870, Twain and Olivia became parents to son, Langdon. The family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where their second child, Susy, was born in 1872. Their joy was short lived however, as baby Langdon died of diphtheria the same year. It was the first of many such heartaches for Twain and his wife. Of his four children—younger daughters Clara and Jean were born in 1874 and 1880—only Clara would survive him.
Twain continued to write, and in 1876, he published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book starred Tom, a mischievous prankster modeled after a young Twain and several of his boyhood friends. The novel's portrayal of an idyllic American town where children ran unapologetically amok struck a nerve with readers, and the book proved a success with children and adults alike.
Not everyone in the literary establishment was impressed with the frankness of Twain's language, however. "In the books to be placed into children's hands for purposes of recreation, we have a preference for those of a milder type than Tom Sawyer," the New York Times sniffed in a review. "Excitements derived from reading should be administered with a certain degree of circumspection. …. less, then, of Injun Joe and 'revenge,' and 'slitting women's ears.''17
Yeesh. Bet that dude was fun at parties.
Twain followed that up with Life on the Mississippi, his memoir of his steamboat years, and then founded his own publishing company with his nephew. In 1885, he published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a semi-sequel to Tom Sawyer. He opened with a very Twainy warning: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted," Twain wrote in the preface; "persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."18
Narrated by rascal Huckleberry Finn, who was based on Twain's childhood friend Tom Blankenship, the book was one of the first written entirely in regional American dialect. Though set in pre-Civil War South, Huck's adventures indirectly tackled serious antebellum issues, like racism and bigotry. Without ever coming close to preaching or moralizing, the book argued against racism and for equality—something that Twain believed in passionately.
The book was immediately popular. "The book is Mark Twain at his best," one reviewer declared.19
See? That guy seems fun at parties.
In the century since it was published, Huckleberry Finn has been referred to by many as the Great American Novel, the single book that best represents American literature. Not everyone was sold at the beginning, however, and not everyone is sold today.
The Concord Library banned the book when it was published, and Huck Finn is still one of the most banned books in America, thanks to its repeated use of the n-word. In Twain's defense, the slur is used in the overtly anti-racist novel only because it was used in real life at the time. We reckon Mr. Twain took to writin' in the vernacular real serious like.
Twain never let criticisms bother him, though. "The truth is, when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me,"20 he wrote.
His next book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, did not enjoy the same critical reception as Huckleberry Finn. However, it made its mark as one of the first novels to explore time travel, and has been called one of the earliest science fiction novels.
Twain's real-life time as a Connecticut Yankee was limited. After several bad business investments, his finances were a mess. The Clemenses sold their house in Connecticut and moved to Europe, where the living was cheaper.
We bet they bragged about it every chance they got, too. Whoop-dee-doo, you lived abroad.
No one cares.