He established his reputation with the comic masterpiece The Innocents Abroad 1869 and two classic American novels, in dialect, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876 and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1885. He also wrote satire, as in A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court 1889. Born in Florida, Missouri, Twain grew up along the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri, the setting for many of his major works, and was employed as a riverboat pilot before he moved west; taking a job as a journalist, he began to write. The tale The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was his first success. After a trip by boat to Palestine, he wrote The Innocents Abroad. As his writing career blossomed, he also became successful as a lecturer. In 1870 he married, and a few years later he and his wife settled in Hartford, Connecticut. Huckleberry Finn is Twain's masterpiece, for its use of the vernacular, vivid characterization and descriptions, and its theme, underlying the humour, of man's inhumanity to man. He also wrote Roughing It 1872, The Gilded Age 1873, Old Times on the Mississippi 1875, The Prince and the Pauper 1882, Life on the Mississippi 1883, Pudd'nhead Wilson 1894, and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc 1896. His later works, such as The Mysterious Stranger, unpublished until 1916, are less humorous and more pessimistic. He is recognized as one of America's finest and most characteristic writers.
