Interesting Facts about Mark Twain

After I started reading Huckleberry Finn last week, I began doing some research on the author, Mark Twain (I do that a lot ... I'm pretty much a research nerd). He was actually a really fascinating guy: he changed jobs a lot, travelled the world, and took a real interest in science - on top of being an excellent writer, of course. But that's just the tip of the iceberg! Here is some of the other stuff that I found out about him (all according to the internet, which as we all know is prone to misinformation - so beware ;)!):

So, what's in a name?

Quite a lot, apparently: his real name was actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens - Mark Twain was the pen name he gave himself which he came up with through the years he spent working on riverboats travelling up and down the Mississippi. "By the mark twain!" would be the call that the leadsmen on these boats would make when they measured the depth of the river and found it to be 2 fathoms deep or more - 2 fathoms being the minimum safe distance to the bottom in order for ships to pass through without sustaining damage. This was a process called "depth sounding", which nowadays is of course done by machines, rather than by using ropes.

Depth sounding in the 19th century (c) Wikimedia

Why "twain" though? Because it's a very old word for "two". Hence, "mark twain" really means "mark two" on the rope, which translates to 2 fathoms (= 12 ft or 3.7 m). And that's how mark twain became Mark Twain ;)!

His Birth and Death

Halley's comet (c) NASA

 

Both Mark Twain's birth and his death happened shortly after a comet known as Halley's Comet appeared in the sky over Earth. Apparently, this comet flies past our planet every 75 to 76 years, and Mark Twain felt a very special connection to it. He said the following in 1909, just one year before his death:

I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'

And then he really did die one day after the comet returned ... creepy, isn't it?

To give you the exact dates though:

Appearance of Halley’s Comet	Birth of Mark Twain
16/11/1830	30/11/1830
Appearance of Halley’s Comet	Death of Mark Twain
20/04/1910	21/04/1910

Bestselling Author

Since the first volume of his autobiography was only published in 2010 and became an immediate bestseller, he is one of the few authors who have managed to bring out bestsellers in three centuries. That's right. Three centuries. Damn impressive!

Lost in Translation

Of course, Mark Twain's works have been translated into many, many languages - but did you know that his first successful story was actually translated into classic Greek? An Oxford professor by the name of Sidgwick decided that it would make good practice for students learning to translate English into classic Greek, so he took the tale, changed the original setting to ancient Greece and translated it so that he could include it in his new textbook.

The frog that travelled the world (c) Susan Jaffe Tane

The funny thing is that when Twain discovered the translation of his own work, he was not aware that this was his own tale and thought that he had unwittingly adapted a classic Greek tale. He eventually discovered the truth though, when he visited this professor in England at a later date and was much disappointed.

And speaking of translations: when Mark Twain discovered the French translation of the same story, he decided to do a back-translation into English of it, giving it the title: "The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, and Then Clawed Back Into A Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil". I think his goal was to poke a bit of fun at the art of translation - which is a difficult job of course, and always destined to fail to some degree, since a translation will never be a 100% the same as the original. That's what he wanted to point out, in my opinion, which become clear in the introduction to the back-translation:

Even a criminal is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man who has done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do his best to right himself. My attention has just been called to an article some three years old in a French Magazine entitled, ‘Revue des Deux Mondes’ (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of “Les Humoristes Americaines” (These Humorist Americans). I am one of these humorists American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.

This gentleman’s article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start into a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or not). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kind and complimentary things about me—for which I am sure thank him with all my heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by one unlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my jumping Frog is a funny story, but still he can’t see why it should ever really convulse any one with laughter—and straightway proceeds to translate it into French in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so very extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all up; it is no more like the jumping Frog when he gets through with it than I am like a meridian of longitude. 

And here's an excerpt of the back-translation:

Original: There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ’49 or maybe it was the spring of ’50 I don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn’t finished when he first came to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body to bet on the other side; and if he couldn’t, he’d change sides.

Back-Translation: It there was one time here an individual known under the name of Jim Smiley; it was in the winter ’49, possibly well at the spring of ’50, I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that it was the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grand flume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, but of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen, betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an adversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side opposed.

He liked to be funny ;)!

(I'll be honest with you though, I don't quite understand what all the fuss is about - I read the story and didn't like it much at all - the ending was okay, but it just took forever to build up. Maybe I'm missing something though. You can read it yourself here, if you like: http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/price/frog.htm It's very short, only about 4 A4 pages.)

Filmed by Edison

So, A) he was friends with Thomas Edison, which is cool in itself, and B) OMG THERE IS VIDEO FOOTAGE OF MARK TWAIN! Seriously, Thomas Edison came to Mark Twain's house in 1909 and filmed him for a few minutes. The clip is nothing extraoridnary in itself, of course - except for the fact that it's got Mark Twain in it ;)! You can watch it here (via YT):

The Terrors of the German Language

Oh, German - it seems that Mark Twain could not resist pulling you to pieces for your difficult grammar either. In 1897 he actually gave a speech in front of the Viennese print media club about the horrors of German syntax - the funny thing though? He did it in German!

For those of you who speak German, here's the original version: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/die-schrecken-der-deutschen-sprache-und-andere-kurze-texte-6678/1

And here's a translated version for those of you who don't (be careful though - it's a very literal version, which tries to stick close to the original): http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3188/3188-h/3188-h.htm#link2H_4_0008

His Grave

Now, this is something lovely that his daughter did for him, after he had died: she erected a monument above his grave which was exactly two fathoms high (= mark twain).

Monument above Mark Twain's grave (c) Wikimedia

Funny and Meaningful Quotes

Lastly, as a writer and a humorist he obviously said and wrote many meaninguful and funny things. Here's a selection of my favourite quotes (I double checked that it really was Mark Twain who said these things by looking at numerous websites and sources - so these should be alright!):

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

"There are many humorous things in this world, among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."

"Lincoln's Proclamation [...] not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also."

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."

Links & References

Wikipedia on Mark Twain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

Mark Twain House on Mark Twain: http://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/biography_main.php

Depth sounding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_sounding & http://bymarktwain.com/

Back Translation of First Story: http://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/mark-twains-back-translation-2008-10-27.html & http://genius.com/Mark-twain-back-translation-the-celebrated-jumping-frog-of-calaveras-county-annotated#note-3834512