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76 unusual facts about Mark Twain


A Double Barrelled Detective Story

A Double Barreled Detective Story is a short story/novelette by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), in which Sherlock Holmes finds himself in the American west.

A Horse's Tale

A Horse's Tale is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), written partially in the voice of Soldier Boy, who is Buffalo Bill's favorite horse, at a fictional frontier outpost with the U.S. 7th Cavalry.

A. C. Trumbo House

The A.C. Trumbo House (1321 West Broadway) is a house in Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States, built in 1906 for Arthur C. Trumbo as a replica of one of Mark Twain's houses and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Agnes Broun

Mark Twain wrote of her in Innocents Abroad (Ch. XXXVI): "It reminds me of what Robert Burns’ mother said when they erected a stately monument to his memory: "Ah, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they hae gi'en ye a stane.

Amrita Kumbher Sandhane

The action is seen through the eyes of Shubhendu Chatterjee who has come to the Mela not out of any religious sentiment but to see and understand people and seek the reason why “….multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining.” (Mark Twain after visiting the 1895 Mela)

Antoni Uniechowski

He illustrated nearly 200 classic books published in Poland, e.g. Voltaire's Powiastki filozoficzne (1948), Henryk Sienkiewicz's Potop (1949), Ignacy Krasicki's Monachomachia (1953), Stefan Żeromski's Popioły (1954), Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper (1954), Frances Burnett's A Little Princess (1959), Bolesław Prus' Lalka (1962) and Emancypantki (1972).

Ayton Castle

Mention must be made of the visit to the castle in 1873 by Mark Twain who insisted upon buying the Dining Room fireplace, which is now in the Mark Twain Museum, Hartford, Connecticut.

Ballyclare

Jonathan Swift preached here and it was from here the families of Mark Twain, Sam Houston and General Alexander Macomb left for America.

Bolivar, Mississippi

Mark Twain mentioned Bolivar Landing in his parody "River Intelligence", published in the New Orleans Crescent in 1859.

Burkeville, Virginia

Though he moved to Richmond shortly before the Civil War, he paid homage to his Southside roots through his music and story-telling, in which he engaged himself professionally in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sharing a stage on occasion with Mark Twain, and becoming the first known artist to record music with a mixed-race ensemble.

Cameron Daddo

In 2000, he also starred in Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story as Jack Garrison, an American writer who had an important role during World War I. Daddo appeared as Samuel Clemens in the 2003 television pilot Riverworld based on the popular novels.

Chang Young-hee

Chang also had served as an executive director and editor for the Korea Hawthorne Society since 1995 and the Korea Mark Twain Society since 2003.

Chinese Takeout

"Magnificent....Nersesian's story of a man on a search for authenticity won't leave you hungry....Nersesian is this generation's Mark Twain and the East River is his Mississippi."

College Hill, St. Louis

The park's area was reduced by five and a half acres in 1954 when the State Highway Department acquired the right of way for the Mark Twain Expressway.

Condover Hall

Her uncle, Reginald Cholmondeley had owned the house when he was host to the American writer Mark Twain (1835–1910) when he visited in 1873 and 1879.

Copperopolis, California

Copperopolis is famous for the shack on Jack Ass Hill, where Mark Twain is purported to have written one of his most famous works, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

Czech branch of the House of Thurn and Taxis

Other artists and intellectuals known to visit the castle included F. X. Salda, Eliška Krásnohorská, Karel Bendl, members of the Czech Quartet (who included composer Josef Suk), and Mark Twain (who visited the castle during his European travels in 1899).

Dollis Hill

Mark Twain stayed in Dollis Hill House in the summer of 1900.

Drysdale Overture

In writing it, the composer once wrote that he was "left with that lovely Mark Twain image of Jim and Huckleberry drifting on their barge down that great river, looking up at the stars and wondering 'whether they was made, or only just happened'"

Earl of Bridgewater

A scoundrel claiming to be the long-lost but rightful Duke of Bridgewater appears in the 1885 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, which is set before the American Civil War.

Fort Branch, Indiana

Sheriff Thomas Beloat, noted for his bravery in stopping a lynching in Gibson County, mentioned in an essay by Mark Twain, The United States of Lyncherdom.

Frank Counsell

Around 1885 he left Adelaide for Melbourne, where after working as draughtsman for several firms, he gained emplowment with the Victorian Railways, and was responsible for the work on several country stations, notably Maryborough (of which Mark Twain wrote a humorous piece) and Ballarat.

Frantisek Kotzwara

The Battle of Prague was a popular piece of music during the late 18th and 19th centuries, with Mark Twain mentioning the piece in his books Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Tramp Abroad.

G. S. Khaparde

He become popular by way of his wit, humour and mannerisum and hence some news-paper described him as Mark Twain.

George Augustus Robinson

There is a reference to Robinson in the book "The Lost Diamonds of Killiecrankie" by Gary Crew and Peter Gouldthorpe, and in Following the Equator, by Mark Twain.

George Mathan

Historically, he is also a contemporary of great writers like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.

Gianni Bettini

He made of extraordinary recordings of an elderly Pope Leo XIII in 1903, Mark Twain and President Benjamin Harrison.

Gondour

Gondour is a fictitious republic created by Mark Twain in his short story "The Curious Republic of Gondour", and popularized by Robert A. Heinlein and his heirs.

Halemaumau Crater

In 1866 Mark Twain, an American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer hiked to the Caldera floor.

Harpers Ferry Historic District

In the late 19th century a number of Victorian and Federalist-style houses were built on the high ground and received guests who included Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell and Woodrow Wilson.

Hershel Parker

In the 1970s Parker pioneered the study of lost authority in standard American novels by Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer and others.

Hey, Rube!

Mark Twain's classic description of a circus and other shows in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn provides illustration.

Hoaxes and legends of upstate New York

The Cardiff Giant, for example, attracted such attention from the public and from writers such as Mark Twain and L. Frank Baum that P. T. Barnum made a copy which toured the country with his circus.

Iconography of St. Louis

The writer Mark Twain is an icon of St. Louis in his own right, and wrote prolifically about the steamboats along the river.

Igor Maslennikov

In 1989 Maslennikov filmed the television adventure picture Philipp Traum, based on the unfinished Mark Twain novel The Mysterious Stranger.

Jim Post

During the 1990s and 2000s, he focused on performing the character of Mark Twain in one-man shows.

Jimmy Buffett greatest hits compilations

"Stories From My Favorite Books" is a spoken-word track taken from a recording that originally aired on Radio Margaritaville of Buffett reading an excerpt of Mark Twain's travelogue, Following the Equator.

Joel Courtney

Alongside Jake T. Austin, Courtney will be portraying Tom Sawyer in Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, an adaptation of Mark Twain's classic, written and directed by Jo Kastner.

John Downing, Jr., House

Notably, his work with the young Samuel Clemens led to a literary appearance years later: writing under the name of "Mark Twain", Clemens portrayed him in the book Life on the Mississippi.

Julian Rose

Meanwhile, while on tour in Holland, France and the UK, Julian performed as the sole actor in a groundbreaking performance of Harvey Grossman's adaptation and direction of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Kaltenleutgeben

Mark Twain lived in Kaltenleutgeben for a half year in 1898.

Leavenworth, Indiana

His son Zebulon, named after the boy's uncle in Indiana, became a famous riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River and was a friend of Mark Twain before Twain became a writer.

March 1504 lunar eclipse

In 1889 Mark Twain used an altered version of the real story of the rescue of Columbus in his novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Marie Paradis

Mark Twain reports that she took her boyfriend with her, a detail not found in other sources.

Mark Dawidziak

The company's artistic director, he frequently appears in Largely Literary productions as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.

Mark Twain effect

The name comes from the following quotation in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: "October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."

Mark Twain/I-70 Industrial, St. Louis

It is bound by I-70 to the north, North Kingshighway to the east, Natural Bridge Road to the south, and the city limit to the west.

Maryborough, Victoria

In 1895 American writer Mark Twain visited the town and remarked about the station upon his visit.

Michael S. Hart

Hart began posting text copies of such classics as the Bible and the works of Homer, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain.

Milray

Mark Twain introduced a fictional elaboration of the mill in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Missouri Route 107

No towns are on the route, but the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site is less than a mile to the east in Florida.

Mother tongue mirroring

In “The awful German language” Mark Twain humorously explained the difficulties of German syntax and morphology by mirroring long sentences in English.

Nikola Tesla Museum

Selected documents and photographs from correspondence with friends, writers and artists—George Westinghouse, Mark Twain, Robert Underwood Johnson, and others—are also in the show-case.

Our Gangs Dark Oath

"Our Gang's Dark Oath" is also the name of the second chapter of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

Pat LoBrutto

The walls were lined with popular fiction and non-fiction; Greek and Roman classics; beautifully bound volumes from the 19th Century; complete sets of Shakespeare, Dickens, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Patrick F. McManus

McManus's writing is characterized by a dry wit that has drawn comparisons to Mark Twain and Robert Benchley.

Riggs' disease

Mark Twain wrote briefly about Riggs' disease in his short essay, Happy Memories of the Dental Chair, in which he claims to have been examined by Dr. Riggs himself.

Rigi

Mark Twain also visited Rigi during his tour of Central Europe in the late 1870s, and wrote about his travels in his "A Tramp Abroad."

Rule of the Bone

Some critics, such as Michiko Kakutani for the New York Times, describe the book as descending from other novels about rebellious teens, such as J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn New York Times review, May 19, 1995.

Seth Low

During his 1901 campaign, he had the support of humorist Mark Twain.

Sontag Hotel

Several famous people also stayed at Sontag hotel while they paid a visit to Korea such as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American writer Mark Twain.

Steve Aylett

Aylett says he is in the tradition of "real satirists" such as Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain.

T. R. Pearson

His writing captures a uniquely Southern social order, outlook, and voice and has been compared to the work of Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

The Case for Israel

For instance, Dershowitz once (accurately) quotes a remark by Mark Twain using the same ellipses as Peters did when she used the same quotation in her book; in Finkelstein's view, this constituted plagiarism because Dershowitz cited Twain but not Peters in his book.

The Dagger of Kamui

The movie is very accurate in its depictions of pre-Meiji Japan, Russia, and the United States, and deals directly with historical events such as the Boshin War, and historical figures such as Saigō Takamori, Andō Shōzan, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa, Geronimo, and Mark Twain.

The Geysers

Soon after, in 1852, The Geysers was developed into a spa for The Geysers Resort Hotel, which attracted the likes of Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain.

The Golden Arm

The Golden Arm is a folktale most famously used by Mark Twain on how to tell a story.

The Pas

In Canada and elsewhere, the book is used as part of school reading, and so despite its size, The Pas is widely known to several generations of Canadians, much as the town of Hannibal, Missouri is known to many from Mark Twain's writings.

Three Men on the Bummel

Jerome would have been aware of Mark Twain's humorous travelogue, A Tramp Abroad (1880), based on a walking tour through similar parts of Germany, with extensive comments on the language and culture.

Twain Harte, California

Its name is derived from the last names of two famous authors who lived in California, Mark Twain and Bret Harte.

Union Company

In 1897 Mark Twain criticised travel conditions on a Union Company ship in his travel book Following the Equator.

Valley City, Ohio

Valley City is known for being "The Frog Jump Capital of Ohio." Since 1962, it has held an annual contest patterned after Mark Twain's story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." On April 2, 1964, two years after the first contest was held, Governor Jim Rhodes proclaimed this contest the official state frog jumping championship.

Wanda Landowska

Landowska was born in Warsaw, where her father was a lawyer, and her mother a linguist who translated Mark Twain into Polish.

Watson's Hotel

Among the hotel's notable guests was Mark Twain, who wrote about the city's crows he saw outside his balcony in Following the Equator.

WDZ

Smiley (real name Lester) got his nickname from a character in Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, which he was reading on the air.

Wild Nights!

As the title suggests, the stories are about the final days in the lives of authors Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James and Ernest Hemingway.


Dan Rice

He won the affection of many newspapers and publicists, including those of a then unknown Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.

David M. Key

Key's work as Postmaster General is harshly criticized by Mark Twain in The Autobiography of Mark Twain.

E. W. Kemble

His lively cartoons, some of the magazine industry's most mature work, attracted the attention of Mark Twain, who employed Kemble to illustrate Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Freudenstadt

In the 19th and 20th centuries, visitors of note included George V of the United Kingdom, the Queen of Sweden, John D. Rockefeller, and even the American writer Mark Twain.

Girl next door

Both gender examples of the "Next Door" archetype are quintessentially addressed with Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the characters of Emily Webb and George Gibbs or in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer series within the characters of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.

Gregg Andrews

A largely immigrant community, Ilasco was a suburb of Hannibal, Missouri, and was also the location of the cave made famous in Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Holbrooke Hotel

Several notable people stayed at the hotel including “Gentleman Jim” Corbett, Lotta Crabtree, Bob Fitzsimmons, Bret Harte, Jack London, Lola Montez, Emma Nevada, Mark Twain, and five US Presidents: Grover Cleveland, James Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Herbert Hoover.

McClintocksville, Pennsylvania

He was also a generous philanthropist, providing many public works for his hometown of Fairhaven and financially assisting helping such notables as Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and Booker T. Washington.

Peter Newell

Newell often illustrated the works of other authors, such as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, John Kendrick Bangs, and Lewis Carroll.

Pleiades Club

Among the customers of Maria's, the Pleiades Club named: Amos Cummings, Colonel William Gulder, Ripley Oswood Anthony, Paul Du Chaillu, Clara Louise Kellogg, Mark Twain, Valerian Gribayedoff, Signor Tagliapietra, "Billy" (W. E. S) Fales, Cleveland Moffett, Stephen Crane, "Billy" Welsh, Henry Tyrrell, Sam Chamberlain, Colonel Patton, William Garrison, George Luks, and Ernest Jarrold as its progenitors.

Reed Opera House and McCornack Block Addition

A number of notable performers made appearances, including local celebrity Hallie Parrish Hinges, artist/political cartoonist Thomas Nast, Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain, presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison and John Philip Sousa's band.

The Dark Design

This mission, which was launched by the Pharaoh Imhotep, included the giant whom Sam Clemens calls Joe Miller (believed by the Egyptians to be an incarnation of the god Thoth).

The Stolen White Elephant

"The Stolen White Elephant" is a short story written by Mark Twain and published in 1882 by James R. Osgood.

Venus of Urbino

In his 1880 travelogue A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain called the Venus of Urbino "the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses".