26-30 Mark Twain Facts
26. Mark Twain published two dime novels, Tom Sawyer – Detective, and Tom Sawyer – Abroad, to cash in on the popularity of pulp fiction and Jules Verne-style science fiction, some two decades after the title character’s debut. – Source
27. Mark Twain was a Confederate soldier. – Source
28. Mark Twain is considered one of the first stand-up comedians and a pioneer in the art of “personal branding”. – Source
29. In the early days of typewriters, Mark Twain stopped using one for letters because of the number of questions he would receive about the machine in response to said letter. – Source
30. In 1905 Mark Twain used the word “Swag” to parody King Leopold II and the Congo Free State. – Source
31-35 Mark Twain Facts
31. Mark Twain called the cherimoya “the most delicious fruit known to men.” – Source
32. After murderer and noted philologist Edward Rulloff was sentenced to death, someone called for his release so he could further contribute to philology. In response, Mark Twain wrote a satirical editorial suggesting someone else be hanged in his place. – Source
33. The pen name of Samuel Clemens came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats. When a riverboatman measured that the water was two fathoms deep, and thus safe to pass through, they would yell, “Mark Twain!” – Source
34. Mark Twain reviled Cuban cigars:”I dread high-priced Havanas with a fancy label; a label which augments the price of the cigar twenty-seven degrees beyond its value. I have accepted tons of those and given them to the poor. It’s not that I hate the poor but that I do not wish to waste anything.” – Source
35. Mark Twain’s “Huck Finn” had its publication date pushed back because someone drew a penis on one of the illustrations. – Source
36-40 Mark Twain Facts
36. Mark Twain believed certain 18th and 19th-century novels which romanticized ideas of chivalry and of the idealization of the Middle Ages helped shape the Southern character which was ultimately responsible for the Civil War. – Source
37. “If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a few minutes” was the original phrase, coined by Mark Twain. – Source
38. Mark Twain was the first to anticipate the value of fingerprints as evidence in one of his novels. – Source
39. The widely-reported “historical fact” that mummies were burned as locomotive fuel in the 1800’s was actually a misunderstanding of a joke by Mark Twain. – Source
40. Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” – Source
