Success and lame

Return to the East. In 1867, Twain took a voyage to Europe and the Holy Land aboard the steamship Quaker City. His travel letters to the San Francisco «Alta California» and the New York «Tribune» were collected in a popular book, «The Innocents Abroad» (1869). In the book, Twain ridiculed the sights and man­ners of the countries he visited, and the American tourists travel­ing abroad.

Encouraged by die prospect of future wealth from a literary ca­reer, Twain courted a young woman from Elmira, N.Y., named Olivia L. Langdon, whose brother had sailed with him on the Quaker City. The couple were wed on Feb. 2, 1870. Following Twain's brief career as a newspaper editor and columnist in Buffalo, N.Y.. he and his wife moved to Hartford, Conn., in 1871. Their infant son, Langdon, died in 1872, but three daughters, Susy, Clara, and Jean, were born between 1872 and 1880.

Productive years in Hartford. In 1874, Twain and his family moved into a luxurious new 19-room house in Hartford. There, Twain entertained many prominent authors. Literary periodicals in Boston and New York City published many of his writings. In his

20 years in Hartford, Twain wrote most of his best works either at home or in his study at Quarry Farm, near Elmira, N.Y.

«The Gilded Age» (1873), which followed «Roughing It», was Twain's first novel. He wrote it with his friend and fellow Hartford writer, Charles Dudley Warner. The title refers to the decades fol­lowing the Civil War. This book satirizes the selfishness and money- making schemes that were common during that time.

«The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» (1876) represents Twain's first major use of memories of his childhood. Twain modeled St. Petersburg — the home of an imaginative boy named Tom Sawyer, his friend Huck Finn, and the evil Injun Joe - after his home town of Hannibal.

«А Tramp Abroad» (1880) draws on a European tour that Twain took in 1878. The book's narrator describes a walking tour of Ger­many, Switzerland, and Italy. He mixes stories, jokes, legends, and character sketches, while criticizing European guidebooks and cul­ture.

«The Prince and the Pauper» (1882), set in England in the 1500's, describes the exchange of identities between the young Prince Ed­ward and a poor boy named Tom Canty. This book pleased a re­fined circle of New England readers, but disappointed those who preferred the rugged energy of Twain's previous works.

«Life on the Mississippi» (1883) describes the history, sights, people, and legends of the steamboats and towns of the Mississippi River region. In the most vivid passages, chapters 4 through 17, Twain recalled his own piloting days. These chapters had origi­nally been published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875 as «Old Times on the Mississippi».

«Adventures of Huckleberry Finn», generally considered Twain's greatest work, was published in Great Britain in 1884 and in the United States in 1885. Twain had begun the book in 1876 as a sequel to Tom Sawyer. It describes the adventures of two run­aways — the boy Huck Finn and the black slave Jim — and is told from the point of view of Huck himself. Twain used realistic lan­guage in the novel, making Huck's speech sound like actual con­versation and imitating a variety of dialects to bring the other char­acters to life. Tom Sawyer also reappears in certain chapters, and his antics provide the familiar humor for which Twain was known.

Twain's story about Huck Finn, the son of a town drunkard, bccame a controversial book. Huck's casual morals and careless grammar disturbed many readers in Twain's time, and the Con­cord, Mass., Free Public Library banned the novel in 1885. Some people have continued to dislike the novel because of Huck's unre­fined manners and language. In addition, some modem readers object to Huck's simple acceptance of the principles of slavery and his use of racial stereotypes and the insulting term «nigger». How­ever, for his time, Twain was liberal on racial issues. The deeper themes of Huckleberry Finn argue for the fundamental equality and universal aspirations of people of all races.

«А Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court» (1889) introduces another colorful character, a machine shop foreman from Hartford, Conn., named Hank Morgan. Morgan finds himself magically trans­ported back to England in the A.D. 500's. He decides to reform that society by introducing the economic, intellectual, and moral benefits of life in the 1800's. Through events in the book, Twain indirectly satirizes the reverent attitude of some British authors toward the leg­endary Knights of the Round Table. But at the same time, he raises questions about certain values in the American culture of his time.