Mark Twain And Olivia Langdon Essay - 1,408 words

Have you ever wondered what makes a successful relationship and marriage? Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon had a successful, long-lasting relationship. The couples success accounts for their love and completion in marriage. The long-lasting relationship that existed between Mark Twain and Olivia Langdon is due to the fact that they were both truly in love with each other. Olivia Langdon was born in 1835 and died in 1904. She had four children.


Her and Samuel Clemens were married for thirty years. Before their marriage, Olivia lived in Elmira New York with her wealthy, intellectual family. She was frail in health all her life. Her frailty was a result of a tragic ice skating accident.


A preacher had visited her and cured her by the laying of his hands. The once paralyzed girl was now up and walking. Throughout her life Olivia was surrounded by, women who were dynamic intelligent, unapologetic, as well as committed feminists (Trouble 131). Olivia was committed to fighting for womens rights, and stood up for her very opinionated beliefs. Olivia at the age of twenty-three was a model of beauty, elegance, and delicacy. Delicacy for those times was the sign of inward beauty.


Back then it was considered disgusting for a woman to be extremely robust in health. Although she was very independent, Olivia's frailty showed her need for masculine protection. Her family had sheltered her all of her life. The Langdon's were extremely affectionate. They were always kissing and making some sort of physical contact with her.


When Olivia first met Samuel Clemens, she was not impressed at all. She had admired him for his intellect and reputation as a writer. Her main concerns at there meeting time were certainly none of marriage. Mark Twain was one of the famous American authors. He was born in the year 1835 in Florida, Missouri.


His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His birthplace was a small town that was sufficient material for a budding writer. His father died during the year 1847 and shortly after the death of his father his went for schooling to become a printer's apprentice. Between 1853 and 1857 he worked as a journeyman printer.


A series of sketches, "The Snodgrass Letters, " signed Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, were published in the Keokuk Post in 1856 and 1857. These showed that Clemens, like many other humorists of the 1850 s, was fond of using misspellings, and puns for humorous effects. The trip during which he wrote these letters eventually carried him to the Mississippi River. There he took a downstream boat, apparently with the intention of going to South America to seek his fortune. During the trip, however, he recalled boyhood memories of the glamour of river life and arranged to become a pilot's apprentice under Horace Bixby. He won his license in due time and served as a pilot until, in 1861, the Civil War interrupted river traffic.


While a steamboat man, he furthered his literary development by writing occasional skits for newspapers. After serving briefly in the Confederate army, he journeyed overland to Carson City, Nevada, with his brother Orion, who had a political appointment in the territorial government. In Nevada Clemens was caught up for a time in the speculative fever of the mining country; his letters home to Olivia were full of accounts of investments and prospecting trips. When none of his ventures turned out well, he became a reporter on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, beginning in 1862. It was while working on this paper that he really found himself as a humorist, realizing that his sporadic journalistic activities had been no more than amateur exercises preparing him for real achievements. In 1863, while reporting on meetings of the Nevada legislature, he first used the pseudonym Mark Twain, derived from a call by Mississippi boatmen sounding the depth of the river.


In 1864 he went to San Francisco, where he worked for several newspapers. A few of his sketches were reprinted in eastern publications. One story, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog, " published in the New York Saturday Press, November 18, 1865, was a nationa ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: jumping frog, back and forth, lasting relationship, samuel clemens, mark twain

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