For many years he lived in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1908 he went
to a new home at Redding, Connecticut. His last years were saddened by the
death of his daughter and his wife. His death in 1910 made plain the fact
that few American authors had won a more secure place in the affections of
all classes.
It does not seem possible that the life of any other American author can
ever closely resemble his. He had Elizabethan fullness of experience. Even
Sir Walter Raleigh's life was no more varied; for Mark Twain was a printer,
pilot, soldier, miner, newspaper reporter, editor, special correspondent,
traveler around the world, lecturer, biographer, writer of romances,
historian, publisher, and philosopher.
STORIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.--The works by which Mark Twain will
probably be longest known are those dealing with the scenes of his youth.
He is the historian of an epoch that will never return. His works that
reveal the bygone life of the Mississippi Valley are not unlikely to
increase in fame as the years pass. He resembles Hawthorne in presenting
the early history of a section of our country. New England was old when
Hawthorne was a boy, and he imaginatively reconstructed the life of its
former days.
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