MARK TWAIN Some of Mark Twain’s stories were based on his real life experiences growing up as a child in Mississippi. Three of most popular include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi. Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, as Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Mark Twain was just a pen name acquired from a river boat. On river boats, one member of the crew …showed first 75 words of 1123 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1123 total…was dirty, uneducated, and lived without authority. Twain characterized him as "the only really independent person-boy or man-in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy. (Pizer, 1982, P 85) Some of Mark Twain’s stories were based on these real life experiences growing up as a child in Mississippi. Many of his stories share something in common with him or someone he knew. That might be the reason his stories where so popular.