马克吐温(1835～1910年)
Twain, Mark，原名Samuel Langhorne Clement。
美国幽默小说家、作家和演讲家。在密西西比河附近的汉尼拔长大，十三岁时成为当地一个印刷工的学徒。1856年签约成为汽船领航员的学徒。在密西西比河上航行了将近四年，後来到了内华达州和加州，并在那里创作了使之成名的小说《卡拉韦拉斯县驰名的跳蛙》（1865）。1863年采用马克吐温（Mark Twain）为笔名，是指「水深2噚」的水手用语。後来成为一名成功的讲演家，到处游历，并蒐集写作素材，其中包括幽默的记叙文《傻子国外旅行记》和《艰苦岁月》（1972）。他因撰写年轻时冒险故事而赢得全世界读者的喜爱，尤其是《汤姆历险记》（1872）、《乞丐王子》（1881）、《密西西比河上》（1883）和成为美国小说经典的《哈克历险记》（1884）。後来他还写了讽刺性的小说《亚瑟王朝廷上的康乃狄克州洋基佬》（1889）和越来越严谨的作品，包括《傻瓜威尔逊》（1894）和《败坏了哈德莱堡的人和其他故事及短篇作品》（1900）。1890年代因做投机买卖而破产，他的大女儿也去世。他在妻子去世後（1904），後期作品中表达了对人性抱着悲观的见解，如在死後出版的作品《来自地球的信》（1962）。
English version：
1835～1910年
Twain, Mark
U.S. humorist, writer, and lecturer. Born in Florida, Mo., he grew up in nearby Hannibal, on the Mississippi River. At 13 he was apprenticed to a local printer. In 1856 he signed on as an apprentice to a steamboat pilot. He plied the Mississippi for almost four years before going to Nevada and California, where he wrote the story that made him famous, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865). In 1863 he took his pseudonym, the riverman's term for water “two fathoms deep.” He traveled widely as a successful lecturer and to obtain material for his writing, including the humorous narratives The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872). He won a worldwide audience for his stories of youthful adventures, especially Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and Huckleberry Finn (1884), one of the masterpieces of American fiction. The satirical A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and increasingly grim works including Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) and The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) followed. In the 1890s financial speculations bankrupted him and his eldest daughter died. After his wife's death (1904), he expressed his pessimism about human character in such late works as the posthumously published Letters from the Earth (1962).