Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is perhaps America's favorite author.
A quick-witted humorist who wrote travelogues, letters, speeches, and most famously the novels
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
and its sequel,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
, Twain was so successful that he became America's biggest celebrity by the end of the 19th century. Despite writing biting satires, he managed to befriend everyone from presidents to European royalty.