The American Literary Blog

Mark Twain was not too happy to be accused of writing "a feeble imitation" of Bret Harte 's poem " The Heathen Chinee ...

1901 ( source ) Livy Darling, I am grateful — gratefuler than ever before — that you were born, & that your love is mine & our...

Why dont you congratulate me Honestly I never expect to stand on a lecture Platform again after Thursday night. This was the telegraph date...

During a trip to Canada, admirers in Montreal threw a banquet for Mark Twain on December 8, 1881. He took the opportunity to lash out again...

The Louisiana-born Grace King recognized that Samuel Clemens and " Mark Twain " were, in a way, two different people. On Octob...

Samuel L. Clemens had only been using the name " Mark Twain " for a short time when he became nationally-recognized as a writer. ...

"Sold by subscription only," Life on the Mississippi was released on May 12, 1883. Its author, Mark Twain , had revised a series ...

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in the family homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts on December 17, 1807. As was traditional in the 19th ...

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in the small town of Florida, Missouri . Haley's Comet was visible and Clemens l...

MAGNIFICENT FIREWORKS were in contemplation for this occasion, but the idea has been abandoned. Thus read a handbill for the first professi...

Eugene Field himself is mostly to blame for the confusion over his birth date. He is generally presumed to have been born on September 2, 1...

I have been sitting by the machine 2 1/2 hours, this afternoon, and my admiration of it towers higher than ever. There is no sort of mistake...

Samuel Clemens , better known by his pen name of Mark Twain , predicted his own death. His prediction was based on the astronomical phenom...

On February 27, 1885, the publishing firm of Charles Webster and Company signed into a contract to produce their first book. The contact was...

Charles Webster and Company released the American edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on February 18, 1885. The namesake of the compa...

According to a letter by James Fenimore Cooper , The Last of the Mohicans was published by the publishing house of Carey on February 6, ...

A man named Samuel L. Clemens traveled west with his brother, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains, and stopping in the territ...