Great American Authors | Mark Twain: Voice of a Nation | 3

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the pen name that became famous: Mark Twain. Armed with a wry sense of humor and a natural flair for storytelling, Twain gained wide acclaim for his short stories, travel sketches, and novels.

In 1885, he published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a story of two runaways on a quest for freedom. It would become one of the most celebrated, and controversial, books in American literature. But at the height of his popularity, his risky business ventures and his critiques of American policy abroad threatened to ruin his legacy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine it's a sunny afternoon in March 1857 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
0:17.5	You're a seasoned steamboat pilot and you're standing in the pilot house of the Colonel
0:21.8	Crossman. Your hands grasped the large wooden wheel
0:24.8	as you steer the boat out of New Orleans to begin another voyage up the Mississippi River.
0:29.7	A figure appears in the doorway of the pilot house, a slender man with a shock of unruly red hair.
0:36.0	You recognize him as Sam Clemens, the starry-eyed young man who spent much of the journey down from St. Louis chatting with you.
0:42.8	Oh, it's you again. I thought you were off to find your fortune in the Amazon.
0:46.8	Clemon shrugs as he joins you at the wheel. Change of plans.
0:50.8	As it turns out, there won't be any ships heading that way for a long time, and I don't have the fun just to weigh around.
0:56.0	So now what? He heading back to St. Louis? Clemens smiles.
1:00.0	In a way, I'm hoping you'll take me on as a Cub pilot.
1:03.2	You shake your head and return your gaze to the river.
1:06.5	I like you, kid, but taking on an apprentice is a big responsibility,
1:10.6	and I'm not interested in that.
1:12.2	I won't be a burden, I swear.
1:14.0	I'll make it easy for you.
1:15.0	Navigating the Mississippi isn't for the faint of heart.
1:18.0	It's over a thousand miles to St. Louis,
1:20.0	and you need to learn every twist and turn.
1:22.0	You need to know when a ripple on the surface means danger below.
1:26.0	Because if you mess up, an underwater tree branch or rock will rip the hull open wide.
1:31.0	This is a job where inexperience can be deadly. Yeah, well I'm tough and I'm a hard
	...

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