Editing Mark Twain (section)

===Early life===
[[File:Mark Twain by GH Jones, 1850 - retouched.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Samuel Clemens, age 15 holding [[Sort (typesetting)|metal type]] in a [[composing stick]] that spells out his first name. He understood that the photographic printing process reversed the contents of an image in the same way backward moveable type was reversed in printing to give clear copy.]]
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in [[Florida, Missouri]]. He was the sixth of seven children of [[Jane Lampton Clemens|Jane]] (''née'' Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of [[Kentucky]], and [[John Marshall Clemens]] (1798–1847), a native of [[Virginia]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coplin |first=Keith |date=1970 |title=John and Sam Clemens: A Father's Influence |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41640872 |journal=Mark Twain Journal |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=1–6 |jstor=41640872 |issn=0025-3499 |access-date=June 4, 2024 |archive-date=June 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240605172508/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41640872 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Hoffman |first=Andrew |date=1997 |title=Inventing Mark Twain |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/inventingmarktwain.htm |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=www.washingtonpost.com |archive-date=December 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209153135/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/inventingmarktwain.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

His parents met when his father, a lawyer called to the bar in Kentucky, tried to help Jane's father and uncle avoid bankruptcy.<ref name=Hoffman>{{cite book |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-twain.html |title=Inventing Mark Twain |first=Andrew J. |last=Hoffman |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170119152242/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/hoffman-twain.html |year=1997 |publisher=William Morrow |isbn=978-0688127695|archive-date=January 19, 2017 }}</ref> They were married in 1823.<ref name="singular">{{cite book |last = Kaplan |first = Fred | author-link = Fred Kaplan (biographer) |title = The Singular Mark Twain |date=2007 |publisher = Doubleday |isbn = 978-0-385-47715-4 |chapter = 1: The Best Boy You Had 1835–1847}} Cited in {{cite web |url=http://classiclit.about.com/library/weekly/aafpr113003b.htm |title = Excerpt: ''The Singular Mark Twain'' |publisher = About.com: Literature: Classic |access-date = October 11, 2006 |archive-date = March 2, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060302091618/http://classiclit.about.com/library/weekly/aafpr113003b.htm |url-status = dead }}</ref> Twain was of [[English people|English]] and [[Ulster Scots people|Scots-Irish]] descent.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, Volume 41|author=Jeffrey L. (Ed) Egge|page=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Mark Twain's ancestor was "witchfinder general" in Belfast trial|url=http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/mark-twains-ancestor-was-witchfinder-general-during-belfast-witchcraft-trial-230973591-237786421.html|author=Michelle K Smith|date=December 31, 2014|access-date=April 16, 2015|archive-date=April 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150419025716/http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/mark-twains-ancestor-was-witchfinder-general-during-belfast-witchcraft-trial-230973591-237786421.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Transatlantic Renaissances: Literature of Ireland and the American South|author=Kathryn Stelmach Artuso|page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Genealogy Volume 1–2; a weekly journal of American ancestry|author= Lyman Horace Weeks|page=202}}</ref> Only three of his siblings lived beyond childhood: [[Orion Clemens|Orion]] (1825–1897), Pamela (1827–1904), and Henry (1838–1858). His brother Pleasant Hannibal (1828) died at three weeks of age,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mark Twain: A Life|url=https://archive.org/details/marktwainlife00powe_0|url-access=registration|last=Powers|first=Ron|publisher=Free Press|year=2006|isbn=9780743248990}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/clemens_family_tree.php|title=Welcome to the Mark Twain House & Museum – Clemens Family Tree|website=www.marktwainhouse.org|access-date=August 17, 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210081912/http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/clemens_family_tree.php|archive-date=February 10, 2017}}</ref> his sister Margaret (1830–1839) died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832–1842) died three years later.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fears |first=David H. |date=2005 |title=Mark Twain Day by Day: An Annotated Chronology of the Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens Volume 1 (1835–1856 and a sampler of 1880) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41641553 |journal=Mark Twain Journal |volume=43 |issue=1/2 |pages=1–114 |jstor=41641553 |issn=0025-3499 |access-date=June 4, 2024 |archive-date=June 4, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240604100739/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41641553 |url-status=live }}</ref>

When he was four, Twain's family moved to [[Hannibal, Missouri]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/twain.html |title=Mark Twain, American Author and Humorist |access-date=October 25, 2006 |archive-date=October 29, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061029203544/http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/twain.html |url-status=live }}</ref> a port town on the [[Mississippi River]] that inspired the fictional town of St.&nbsp;Petersburg in ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' and ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://encarta.msn.com/sidebar_701509634/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_The.html |title=Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |access-date=November 11, 2006 |last=Lindborg |first=Henry J. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091028010000/http://encarta.msn.com/sidebar_701509634/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_The.html |archive-date=October 28, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[History of slavery in Missouri|Slavery was legal in Missouri]] at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge who died of [[pneumonia]] in 1847, when Twain was only 11.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/c/clemens/ |title=John Marshall Clemens |publisher=State Historical Society of Missouri |access-date=October 29, 2007 |archive-date=September 23, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923110634/http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/c/clemens/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> The following year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printer's apprentice.<ref name="housebio"/> In 1851, he began working as a [[typeset]]ter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the ''[[Hannibal Journal]]'', a newspaper that Orion owned. When Twain was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in [[New York City]], [[Philadelphia]], [[St. Louis]], and [[Cincinnati]], joining the newly formed [[International Typographical Union]], the printers' [[trade union]]. Twain [[autodidact|educated himself]] in [[public library|public libraries]] in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school.<ref>Philip S. Foner, ''Mark Twain: Social Critic'' (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 13, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in the ''[[International Socialist Review (1900)|International Socialist Review]]'' 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65, at [http://www.marxists.de/culture/twain/noteach.htm#n2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020616093459/http://www.marxists.de/culture/twain/noteach.htm#n2|date=June 16, 2002}}</ref>

Twain describes his boyhood in ''[[Life on the Mississippi]]'', stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. "Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay." As Twain described it, the pilot's prestige exceeded that of the captain. The pilot had to "get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cottonwood and every obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, must... actually know where these things are in the dark". [[Steamboat]] pilot [[Horace Ezra Bixby|Horace E. Bixby]] took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between [[New Orleans]] and St. Louis for $500 ({{Inflation|US|500|1858|fmt=eq|r=-3}}), payable out of Twain's first wages after graduating. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would "tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated".<ref>Clemens, Samuel L. ''Life on the Mississippi'', pp. 32, 37, 45, 57, 78, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1917.</ref> It was more than two years before he received his pilot's license. Piloting also gave Twain his pen name from "[[Depth sounding#Terminology|mark twain]]", the [[Chains (nautical)|leadsman's cry]] for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.seatalk.info/cgi-bin/nautical-marine-sailing-dictionary/db.cgi?db=db&uid=default&FirstLetter=m&sb=Term&view_records=View+Records&nh=2|title=Nautical Dictionary, Glossary and Terms directory: Search Results|website=www.seatalk.info|access-date=August 17, 2017|archive-date=August 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817202956/http://www.seatalk.info/cgi-bin/nautical-marine-sailing-dictionary/db.cgi?db=db&uid=default&FirstLetter=m&sb=Term&view_records=View+Records&nh=2|url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/marktwain.htm|title=What do Mark Twain and your depth sounder have in common?|website=www.boatsafe.com/index.html|access-date=September 10, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623045650/http://boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/marktwain.htm|archive-date=June 23, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

As a young pilot, Clemens served on the steamer ''A. B. Chambers'' with [[Grant Marsh]], who became famous for his exploits as a steamboat captain on the Missouri River. The two liked and admired each other, and maintained a correspondence for many years after Clemens left the river.<ref>Hanson, Joseph Mills. ''The Conquest of the Missouri: Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh,'' pp. 24–29, Murray Hill Books, Inc., New York and Toronto, 1909.</ref>

While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him, and even arranged a post of [[mud clerk]] for him on the steamboat ''[[Pennsylvania Steamboat|Pennsylvania]]''. On June 13, 1858, the steamboat's boiler exploded; Henry succumbed to his wounds eight days later. Twain claimed to have foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier,<ref name="autov1">{{cite book |title=Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Harriet Elinor |year=2010 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-26719-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofm00twai_0 }}</ref>{{rp|275}} which inspired his interest in [[parapsychology]]; Twain was an early member of the [[Society for Psychical Research]].<ref>For a further account of Twain's involvement with parapsychology, see {{cite book |last=Blum |first=Deborah |title=Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death |publisher=Penguin Press |date=2006}}.</ref> Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. Twain continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] broke out in 1861, when traffic was curtailed along the Mississippi River.

At the start of hostilities, he enlisted briefly in a local [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] unit, the Marion Rangers as a Second Lieutenant.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2023/04/18/why-mark-twain-had-an-incredibly-brief-stint-as-a-confederate-soldier/ |title=Why Mark Twain had an incredibly brief stint as a Confederate soldier |work=Military Times |last=Barrett |first=Claire |date=April 18, 2023 |access-date=November 10, 2024}}</ref> Twain later wrote the sketch "[[The Private History of a Campaign That Failed]]", describing how he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before their unit disbanded.<ref name="Hannibal">{{cite web |title =Mark Twain Biography |publisher =The Hannibal Courier-Post |url =http://www.marktwainhannibal.com/twain/biography/ |access-date =November 25, 2008 |archive-date =November 20, 2008 |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20081120213517/http://www.marktwainhannibal.com/twain/biography/ |url-status =live }}</ref>

Twain then left for Nevada to work for his brother Orion, who was Secretary of the [[Nevada Territory]]. Twain describes the episode in his book ''[[Roughing It]]''.<ref>Clemens, Samuel L. ''Roughing It'', p. 19, American Publishing Company, Hartford, CT, 1872. {{ISBN|0-87052-707-X}}.</ref><ref name="lemaster">{{cite book|first=J. R. |last=Lemaster|title=The Mark Twain Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zW1k-XS6XLEC&pg=PA147|year=1993|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0824072124}}</ref>{{Rp|147}}