Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an American writer, publisher, lecturer and entrepreneur. He is said to be one of the greatest humorists that America has had. He tried his hands at different professions, but took to writing when he began contributing articles to his older brother s newspaper. He shot to fame with an article called, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County , published in 1865. Mark Twain is perhaps best known for, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876. He wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as its sequel in 1884. He was also quite fascinated with science and technology, and was close friends with Nikola Tesla, and had even patented three inventions, the most famous of which was a self-pasting scrapbook. Twain made a lot of money through his writing, but lost most of it in bad investments. He went bankrupt, but managed to clear all his debts before he died. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley s Comet, and died a day after its next appearance, just as he had predicted.