childhood. Most of the Adventures in Tom Sawyer really happened. Some were experiences of his own, others those of his schoolmates. The St. Petersburg of the novel is the Hannibal of his youth. Tom’s house was the old Clemens home. The school, the church, the cemetery, the island, and the cave can be traced back to Hannibal. So can the leading characters. What they do and say is from memories of years gone by. “There is no real plot to the book. It is Mark Twain looking back on his own boyhood. His book is a nostalgic view of life in a town he idealized, and of course like many writers, he borrowed ideas from other books and transplanted them into his own. But regardless of where his materials came from, they were transformed by Marks personality and artistic skill. “ 5 In 1880 he wrote A Tramp Abroad which describes a walking trip through the Black Forest of Germany and the Swiss Alps. The book he patched together from the experiences he had on this trip, bored him. It is one of his poorer works, though it did bring in useful money that he needed. The Prince and the Pauper (1882) was set in England in the 1500’s describes the exchange of identities between the young Prince Edward and a poor boy named Tom Canty. This book pleased a refined circle of New England readers, but disappointed those who liked the rugged energy of Twains previous works.Life on the Mississippi (1883) describes the history , sights , people and legends of the steamboat and towns of the Mississippi River region . It combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it. “Mark Twain could securely rest his right to survive as an author on those opening chapters in “Life on the Mississippi” in which he makes clear the difficulties, the seeming impossibilities, that fronted those who wish to learn th...
