Wilson

On April 21, 1910, exactly a century ago, Mark Twain died, one of those writers universal essential. His name was actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but he thought that name was too boring to be part of history and appropriated an expression that was common sailor on ships that plied the Mississippi in the mid-nineteenth century. During a season-long remembered as the best moments of his life,was a pilot in one of these steamers, where there was a sailor in charge of checking the depth necessary to not bottoming out (if more than two fathoms). The boat was turning when the sailor's cry was "mark twain!".
Although his birth and death coincided with the approach to Earth of Halley's comet, the life of Sam Clemens was not marked by the destination reserved for the chosen stars. For if
theprinciple was complicated, the end would be terrible. Went through various jobs: Corporate employee, pilot boat, mining, Confederate soldier, journalist, traveler, international speaker ... But fortune did not smile in their economic investments easily ruined even though revenue from its activities.
At the end of his life, unfortunately brewed in your family, losing several of his children andhis wife shortly before his death in New York at age 74. Humor is one of the key weapons Twain, irony, the domain of social satire, colloquial language (different for slaves, farmers, fops East ...), magic as part of reality (the power a brass doorknob Tom Sawyer, Huck talks and Jim ...)
In the 'Youth Literary Jewels' I read several of his stories as comics, but in Collada (the Valledor, Allande)where I found an edition of twenty years 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and read the book in July 1980 light of the candles such readings are hard to forget because the environment often marks more than the book's worth. Later I learned that Mark Twain was not my momentary fascination, was one of the greats.
These works are well known that some are determined to spend at children or youth ('TomSawyer', 'Huckleberry Finn', 'Prince and the Pauper', 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but not ...') forget that not writing for children, was for the general public, and any astute reader can discover his funny lines between social critique messages laden with irony or bitterness.
Imperialist and anti-capitalist, as a freethinker, an observer and critic of his time outstripped hismoral commitment also led him to write anti-religious essays irreverent (but his own family did everything possible to prevent saw the light, his 'Letters from the Earth' is published 50 years after his death.) 'The Mysterious Stranger' is an unforgettable work, daring and ahead of its time, the 'Diaries of Adam and Eve', hide, as always, under the lively prose of Twain, a disenchanted sarcasmpointing the weaknesses of human beings have always had.
So today, the centenary of his death, a good time to reread this classic with an adult view of humor.

* The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865)
    * The Innocents Abroad (1869), satirical travel book.
    * Memorandum of Mark Twain: from the Galaxy (1871)
    * A hard life (also translated as fatigue Passing) (1872)
    * Astrange dream (1872)
    * Stories of Mark Twain original humor (1872)
    * The innocents at home (1872)
    * The Golden Age (1872)
    * Short Stories (1874)
    * Short Stories: New and old (1875)
    * The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), novelization of some characters in the author's childhood in Hannibal.
    * Old Times on the Mississippi (1876)
    * The facts relating to therecent spree of crimes in Connecticut (1877)
    * A quiet tour (1878)
    * Drills, brothers, drilling (1878)
    * Dogs of Sunset (1878)

Twain's grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, New York.

    * A Tramp Abroad (1880)
    * A curious adventure (1881)
    * Prince and the Pauper (1882), historical novel.
    * The theft of the White Elephant (1882)
    * Life on the Mississippi...