No study of American literature or even of world literature would be complete without the inclusion of Samuel Clemens, who is better known to the world as Mark Twain. He shaped American literature and thought, wrote at least half a dozen of its major books, and many short stories that are woven into the tapestry of America. As his friend William Dean Howells said, Twain was "sole, incomparable", unlike all the other "literary men" Howell had known.

Hannibal, Missouri

America's Hometown: Hannibal, Missouri
Written by a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in Hannibal, this site shows Twain's boyhood home, the Mark Twain Cave, and Lover's Leap.

Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum via Artcom
This museum tour includes information about visiting the home and photographs of the interior and exterior.

Mark Twain's Birthplace and Hometown
The Robagoya-juku English School in Tokyo, Japan has developed a page that offers additional photos of sites in and around Hannibal.

Mississippi River
Mark Twain said that the river is a wonderful book with a new story to tell everyday. Here is an enlargeable collection of river photos by the late 19th Century photographer Henry Bosse.

Samuel Clemens

Mark Twain
A short biography of Samuel Clemens is at this site.

Twain
Through the LA Pavilion in Virginia's Public Education Network, Mark Twain is available online to answer questions pertaining to his works and life.

Exhibit: Mark Twain in His Times
Stephen Railton in the Department of English at the University of Virginia provides access to the resources of the Barrett Collection of American Literature at the UVA Library. This is both an electronic archive and a virtual exhibition with a growing number of searchable primary texts.

Works and Literary Criticism

Mark Twain and The Mysterious Stranger
Found at this site is a screenplay treatment of The Mysterious Stranger.

Huckleberry Finn
The text of one of Mark Twain's most well-known novels.

Directory of Twain
Found at this site is a directory of Twain maxims, quotations, and various opinions arranged alphabetically by subjects.

Mississippi and Twain
Literary Critic Edward Marquess Branch discusses the influence of the Mississippi on Twain's life in his article "Old Times on the Mississippi: Biography and Craftsmanship," Nineteenth Century Literature: Electronic Edition 45:1 (June 1990).

Criticism of Huckleberry Finn
Greg Camfield discusses the racial issue in Twain's novel in "Sentimental Liberalism and the Problem of Race in Huckleberry Finn," Nineteenth Century Literature: Electronic Edition 46:1 (June 1991).