Quotes by Twain like "I have always been able to gain my living without doing any work;" and short stories like "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calveras County" are ______2______ for Twain's reputation as a ____3______.

Mark Twain wrote his ______4_____ novels at the end of the 19th century and made the reading of ____5___available to all people. The Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn novels are written the way people really spoke.

When he died, on April 21, 1910, a nation ____ 6 ____ .

Young Twain ____ 8 ______ in life along the Mississippi. But, his father died in 1847, and Twain, 12 years old, had to drop out of school and become an apprentice ____ 9____for local newspapers.

When Twain was 22 he met a river boat pilot and after two years as an apprentice he ______10_____his dream and earned his pilot's license. He was a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River for about 5 years.

He then panned for gold in Nevada. It was in the rough mining camps of the Sierras where Twain heard the story of a jumping frog contest that would make his ____ 11 ____.

Twain's first solo novel, is based on his boyhood in Hannibal. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer turned the traditional ___12 ____juvenile novel of the day upside down. With Tom Sawyer adventure and play is rewarded over _______13______.

The name, Tom Sawyer, quickly entered the American ____ 14 ____--a mischievous youth with a good heart.

Twain next wrote The Prince and the Pauper as a mostly humorless historical novel. Although it is enjoyed today, it was not successful when first published.

Then, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn picks up Huck's tale where it ended in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It is told from the ____ 15 ____ of uneducated Huck and in the language of the people. As this was a new way of writing, Huckleberry Finn is a classic of American literature.

In Huck's words, "Mr. Mark Twain, he told the truth, mainly. There was things he stretched, but mainly he told the truth."