Mark Twain: Jim Smiley And His Jumping Frog

On November 30, 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was born. At the age of four, his family moved to Hannibal, a bustling town near the Mississippi River. When his father, John Clemons, died, his mother Jane became head of the household. The Clemens family was forced into years of economic struggle, which would help shape Mark’s career. Violence was a normal thing where he lived and he witnessed multiple death growing up. The town where he lived shaped many of the places described in some of his works. Twain became very well known when one of his tales about life in a mining camp, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," was printed in newspapers and magazines nationwide. In February 1870, he climbed the social