Mark Twain
密西西比河的舵手——马克·吐温

Mark Twain (1835-1910) is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American author and humorist. He is one of the foremost realists who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “the Great American Novel”.
“马克·吐温”(1835—1910)是美国作家、幽默大师塞缪尔·兰霍恩·克莱门斯的笔名。他是美国首批现实主义小说家之一，创作了《汤姆索亚历险记》(1876)及其续集《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》(1885)，后者常被誉为“伟大的美国小说”。

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. After an apprenticeship with a printer, he worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to the newspaper of his older brother, Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. In 1865, his humorous story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was published. It brought international attention, and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend of top residents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
吐温在密苏里的汉尼拔长大，这也为《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》和《汤姆索亚历险记》提供了创作背景。结束了在一家打印店的学徒生涯之后，他成了一名排字工人，为哥哥奥赖恩·克列门斯的报纸提供文章。后来他成为密西西比河上的领航员，直到前往西部内华达州和奥赖恩一起生活。1865年，他的幽默故事《卡拉维拉斯县驰名的跳蛙》出版，这则短篇故事引起了国际社会的关注，甚至被译为古希腊语。吐温在写作和演讲中表现出的机智和讽刺赢得了评论家和同行的好评，他结交了大量上层人士、艺术家、企业家和欧洲贵族。

Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would “go out with it”, too. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age”, and William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature”.吐温在哈雷彗星降临地球不久后出生，而他曾预言自己将“同彗星一起离开”。在哈雷彗星再次回归地球的第二天他果真悄然离世。马克·吐温被誉为“同时代最伟大的美国幽默作家”，威廉·福克纳称他为“美国文学之父”。