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A successful book is not made of what is in it,
but what is left out of it.”
Aside from being a popular writer, Mark Twain was one
of the great entertainers of his day. Around the country
and around the globe, people packed lecture halls to hear
him speak.
He preferred writing and declared on several occasions
that he was giving up public speaking for good. But time
and again, financial necessity drew him back to the stage.
Late in life and deeply in debt after bankrolling an
ill-conceived typesetting machine, he took to the road
once more for what would be his final and most glorious
tour. It took him to India, Ceylon, South Africa, Australia,
New Zealand, and finally to London, where crowds
thronged him in the street. He served as a kind of
ambassador of American sensibility to the world.
He showed his own countrymen what it meant to be
American as well. Twain’s works such as The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi and The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn proved that world-class literature
could be created from humble American characters, and
literature could be made from uniquely American ways of
speaking. Hemingway himself said, “All modern American
literature comes from Huck Finn. There was nothing before.
There’s been nothing so good since. |
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Mark Twain
(1835-1910) |
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