An Idle Excursion, and Other Papers

Taking his pseudonym from nautical terminology learned during his years as an apprentice river pilot ("mark twain" indicates a depth of two fathoms), Samuel Langhorne Clemens first came to the public's attention when he wrote a humorous travelogue entitled The Innocents Abroad. His best-known works include Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but "Mark Twain" also published a number of delightful short stories - including "Eve's Diary" and "The £1,000,000 Bank-Note." At his peak, he was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. Fellow American author William Faulkner is credited with writing that Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs."