As one of America's first and foremost realists and humorists, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) usually wrote of things he knew about from firsthand experience. Two of his best-known novels typify this trait: in his Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain immortalized the sleepy little town of Hannibal, Missouri (the fictional St. Petersburg), as well as the steamboats which passed through it daily; likewise, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (written after The Prince and the Pauper), the various characters are based on types which Twain encountered both in his hometown and while working as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. And even though The Prince and the Pauper is not based on personal experience (it is set in sixteenth-century England), Twain uses the experiences of two young boys gradually losing their innocence, as he did in both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
Twain's father was a lawyer, but he was never quite successful, and so he dabbled in land speculation, hoping to become wealthy someday. He was, however, a highly intelligent man who was a stern disciplinarian. Twain's mother, a southern belle in her youth, had a natural sense of humor, was inclined to be overly emotional, and was particularly fond of animals and unfortunate human beings. Although his family was not wealthy, Twain apparently had a happy childhood. Twain's father died when Twain was twelve years old and, for the next ten years, Twain was an apprentice printer, both in Hannibal and in New York City. Hoping to find his fortune, he conceived a wild scheme of getting rich in South America. On a riverboat to New Orleans, however, he met a famous riverboat pilot who promised to teach him the trade for five hundred dollars. After completing his training, Twain was a riverboat pilot for four years and, during this time, he became familiar with all of the towns along the Mississippi River.
