Mark Twain
Mark Twain was one of the greatest writers of all time. He was a reporter and out of his profession he had gained a wide knowledge about mankind.
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He was a respected humorist who gained national attention for his literary work. In fact, he is one of the best writers that America could ever produce. He changed the literary landscape in the United States.
He labored for 45 years, writing stories, books and travel diaries which was made very interesting by his fertile imagination.
Controversy
In my own opinion, Mark Twain never avoided controversy. In controversy, he thrived. I remember in his short stories he tells us that at one point he accepted to stand in for an editor of an Agricultural Paper who was going on holiday. He graciously accepted the position because he had been unemployed and this was a chance for him to let the adrenaline flow.
His editorial in his first production were full of humor. For instance, the readers thought he was a crazy man because of the things he published in this paper. He was accused of having no idea on agriculture. This made the original editor to come back from his short-lived holiday.
When he arrived and accused Mark Twain of being incompetent, Twain told him “who review the books? People who never wrote one.” This means that he can still be a good editor for a magazine focused on agriculture even if he had no background in Agriculture.
Mark Twain was an achiever
Twain could use all means to achieve his goals. For instance, when he signed his contract to stand in for the editor of the Agriculture Paper, he promised to generate the interest of people from all walks of life to read about Agriculture. That he did with every possible trick under his disposal. His first publication ever experienced an increase in sales just because of the type of content he was churning out to the readers.
A Master Story Teller
Mark Twain was a master story teller. I particularly remember his story about A medieval Romance in which he reported about struggle for power under monarchies. As you may be aware, thrones are inherited from one generation to the next. In this particular story he spoke about a family which faked the gender of their child in order to inherit the post of Duke in their kingdom. The story was real dramatic to say the least. This was a daring and devilish mission to undertake with the hope that the gender of their daughter would never be discovered.
At some point the daughter of the current Duke became pregnant and eventually gave birth. This attracted a heavy sentence of death but first the fake Duke was to make a judgement while seated on the throne. There was one condition that if a woman sits of the judgement throne, she will die on the spot. The daughter of the Duke was asked to name the man who had impregnated her. To everyone’s surprise she pointed at the new Duke. This became a great dilemma because the Duke who was a woman (pretending to be a man) had to prove that he is in reality a woman in order to be exonerated from the false blame. The new Duke collapsed on hearing ‘his’ name being mentioned as the one who impregnated the daughter of the old duke.
End of the Story
Mark Twain ends the story there and promises that there will be no other episode to explain what happened next because of the situation in which he had put his characters. This is one of the most attention grabbing stories that I have ever consumed as a reader.
Classics for Ever! Adios.
