ng 1868 – 69 Twain did a number of lectures for the Redpath Lyceun Bureau. Twain’s title for the lectures was “The American Vandal Abroad” (33). This description of his platform appearance and manner was published in the Chicago Tribune early in 1869: “Mr. Twain is a gentleman of some notoriety, and his effusions are constantly making the rounds of the press. The following sketch will be interesting to those who have not the pleasure of his acquaintance: Blessed with long legs, he is tall, reaching five feet ten inches in his boots; weight 167 pounds, body lithe and muscular; head round and well set on considerable neck, and feet of no size within the ken of a shoemaker, so he gets his boots and stockings always made to order. He smokes tobacco. Drink never crosses the threshold of his humorous mouth. Fun lurks in the corner of it. His manner is peculiar; he hangs round loose, leaning on the desk of flirting round the corners of it; then marching and counter – marching in the rear of it, marking off ground by the yard with his tremendous boots”(34). The first thing most people think about when you hear Mark Twain is Huck Finn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered one of Twain’s greatest works and one of American literatures greatest works of fiction. Twain’s characters in Huck Finn portrayed people that he met while a young man in Hannibal. Judge Carpenter is somewhat like his father; Aunt Polly, his mother; Sid Sawyer, his brother Henry; Huck Finn, a town boy named Tom Blankenship; and Tom Sawyer, a combination of several boys –including Twain himself. In closing Twain was a writer that took in surroundings and somehow turned them into some of the greatest books in the world; such as his life in Hannibal, working as a river boat pilot, fighting in the civil war, moving to Nevada, and his lectures during 1868 – 69. All of these events in his life somewhat effe...
