Authors often base their stories on their own life experiences and beliefs. In Adventures

of Huckleberry Finn, there are many references to Samuel Clemens’s life, tying in how Clemens

felt about the everyday issues of his time with the journey and trials of a boy and a slave.

Throughout the story, he expresses his views on racism, morality, society, and his own

adventures.

Samuel Clemens grew up in Missouri, a slave state at the time, and experienced first- hand how slavery worked, later bringing it up in many of his writings. After the death of his

father at age 11, Clemens became a printer’s apprentice and started working as a typesetter in

1851 as a contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper

company owned by his brother, Orion. Clemens later went on to pilot his own steamboat on

the Mississippi. It is here that Clemens found his pen name, Mark Twain, from "mark twain,"

the cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms. This is also where Clemens found the time

to write a book titled, Life on the Mississippi, a memoir of his days as a steamboat pilot on the

Mississippi River before the American Civil War. When the Civil War began, Clemens enlisted in

a Confederate Unit, which is where he wrote a sketch called, "The Private History of a

Campaign That Failed," telling how he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two

weeks before disbanding their company.

Throughout his travels, Clemens was able to achieve many things and gain a multitude

of different skills. Among these achievements was when Clemens was recognized as the father

of American literature, going as far as saying “I am not an American, I am the American."

Clemens, spending a good amount of his time on a steamboat, was also able to pick up the skills

of sailing and piloting