Mark Twain Biography Library · Giant Hundred -- Mark Twain

Author: Liu Luxian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-01-01
Features: We are delighted to recommend the "Giant Biographies Series" to young friends. At the turn of the century, having such a fine series accompany you is a joy in wisdom. We believe that from the footsteps of these giants and masters, you can learn how to properly handle success and failure, comfort and hardship, joy and pain, smoothness and adversity, and understand how to face life, how to be a person, how to pursue knowledge, how to shape oneself, and how to shape the future.
Principal of Peking University: Zhao Yulin
Party Secretary: Dong Lingsheng
Principal of Tsinghua University: Zhao Qinggang
Giants are the elite of humanity, they have made outstanding contributions to the progress and civilization of human society, their spirit of struggle and superhuman achievements are deeply admired by people, becoming models for people to learn from. Giants are human, not gods, they come from ordinary people but are above ordinary people. High ideals, the belief of seeking happiness for the motherland and humanity, are the driving force for their unremitting efforts and fearlessness of difficulties.
Principal of Tianjin Nankai: Kang Xiuyan
To carefully read this series of books is like seeing their appearance, speech, and behavior, feeling their ideals, beliefs, ambitions, and sentiments, which will help you learn how to be a person, how to pursue knowledge, and how to build a career.
Principal of Fudan University: Cao Tianren
Mark Twain was an American writer. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. "Mark Twain" is his pen name. He was born in a small rural lawyer family in Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi River, and started working as an apprentice from a young age. He worked as a typesetter, a Mississippi River pilot, a Confederate soldier, and also engaged in the timber, mining, and publishing industries, but his effective work was as a journalist and writer of humorous literature. Mark Twain is the founder of American critical realism literature and a world-renowned master of short stories. He experienced the development of the United States from "free" capitalism to imperialism, and his thoughts and creations also reflected a development from light-hearted humor to sharp satire to pessimistic disillusionment. His early works, such as the short story "The Campaign for Governor" (1870) and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1886), used a humorous and witty style to mock the absurdity of American "democratic elections" and the essence of the "democratic paradise." His mid-career works, such as the novel "The Gilded Age" (1874, co-written with Warner), and the representative novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1886) and "The Prince and the Pauper" (1893), used a profound and biting tone to satirize and expose the rampant speculation, money worship, and inhumane racial discrimination in the United States. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" tells the story of a white boy, Huckleberry, traveling down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave, Jim, not only criticizing the barbarity of feudal family feuds and private punishments but also satirizing the hypocrisy and ignorance of religion, condemning the evils of slavery, and praising the excellent qualities of the enslaved while promoting the progressive idea that everyone, regardless of race or status, deserves freedom. The work is written with fresh and powerful language, a natural and unique perspective, and is considered a landmark work of realism in American literary history. In the late 19th century, as the United States entered the stage of imperialism, some of Mark Twain's travelogues, essays, and political commentaries, such as "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1897), "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1900), and "The Mysterious Stranger" (1916), gradually weakened their critical and exposing significance while extending their sense of despair and mystery. Mark Twain was hailed as "Lincoln of American Literature." Most of his major works have been translated into Chinese.