Mark Twain (the most well-known pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemons) was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, and grew up in Hannibal, a Missouri town along the Mississippi river. Hannibal was to play a significant role in some of Twain's most popular books and stories. When Twain was twelve, his father died. Twain then helped support his family by going to work as a printer's apprentice. After several failed business partnerships with his brother Orion, he took off across the American west, selling travel pieces to newspapers.

In 1857, Twain left on a trip to South America, with a contract to write about his adventures. While traveling down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, Twain struck up a friendship with a riverboat captain named Horace Bixby. Twain abandoned his plan and instead became Bixby's apprentice, earning his own license to pilot steamboats in 1859. It was...