THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF
CALAVERAS COUNTY
BY MARK TWAIN
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) grew up on
the shores of the Mississippi River in Hannibal,
Missouri. He took his pen name from the call of
riverboat captains trying to determine the depth of
nearby waters by dropping ropes off the side of the
deck. Twain may be viewed as a humorist for his
many comical short stories and novels, but he is also
responsible for one of the most important works in the
nation’s history, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In fact, Ernest Hemingway would later say, “All
modern American Literature comes from one book by
Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”