America was defining itself into an influential nation; through Mark Twain’s writings he gave definition to what it meant to be an American. Using cutting and accurate humor, he attracted a range of readers and audiences. Twain stunned the world with his brilliance and talent. Ernest Hemingway, a fellow American author, felt that all American fiction was influenced by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and called the book the finest American novel ever written.

Growing up on a farm in Florida, Missouri, Samuel Clemens enjoyed the delightfulness of the country life. At the age of six, Sam’s best friend was a slave girl, who he spent many hours wadding in brooks and picking wild blackberries with her. Sam’s favorite slave “Dan’l become the role model for Jim in Huckleberry Finn” (The Importance of Mark Twain 11). Telling stories and entertaining the family, Sam was intrigued and interested by his friend’s ability. His family soon moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where Sam found a completely new way of life. Witnessing prejudice concerning the African Americans, “Sam began to question the righteousness of slavery” “Living in a bigge

He was the first, if not the only, man of his section to betray a consciousness of the grotesque absurdities in the Southern inversion of the civilized ideals in behalf of slavery, which much have them upside down in order to walk over them safely (149).

Twain started writing stories about Hannibal and he succeeded in publishing a few nonfiction stories for Philadelphia’s Saturday Evening. Boston’s The Carpet-Bag and Philadelphia’s American Courier also printed stories written by Clemens. He once wrote “something purely imaginary about Indians who had once visited Hannibal”:

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