Legends of American Literature Unit 1

1. Legends of American LiteratureUnit 1 Click to start

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3. Mark Twain Mark Twain is one of the most acclaimed and widely recognized American authors. Better known as Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain was born November 30th, 1835 in the southern city of Florida, Missouri. His family moved to Hannibal, Missouri when he was four years old. This move would be a pivotal point in his literary career, as the setting of the then-slave state would serve for his most renowned work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After working as both a typesetter and a steamboat pilot for various years, he would not write his first important work until he was 30 years old.

4. The Works of Mark Twain In 1865, under the surname Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens's first important work, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, told the tale of obsessive gambler Jim Smiley. His most notable works however are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written in 1876, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in 1884. While Tom Sawyerwas initially inspired by Twain’s life in Hannibal, Missouri, Huckleberry Finn is widely regarded with the most literary merit, being called by some “The First Great American Novel”. One notable feature about the two books is that both title characters make appearances in each novel, including the two sequels to Tom Sawyer. Next: Edgar Allan Poe

5. Edgar Allan Poe A famous poet and short story writer, as well as a literary critic, Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19th, 1909, in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe’s mother died when he was only two years old, and he was informally adopted by a family friend, John Allan. Known especially for his emotional and dark, brooding stories, Poe’s life of perpetual trauma and depression served to inspire him to pen such works as “The Raven”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “The Masque of the Red Death”.

6. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe is most renown for his poems, most importantly “The Raven”, published in January of 1845. The narrative poem weaves the eerie tale of a scholar who buries himself in his library in an attempt to rid himself of the pain caused by the loss of his lover, Lenore. Poe has also written a number of famous short stories, including “The Tell-Tale Heart”, a tale of a man being driven to insanity after murdering a man, believing that he can still hear his heart beating under the floorboard of his home. Next: Can you handle a quiz…?

7. An American Literature Quiz Question 1: Where was Mark Twain born? A) St. Petersburg, Florida A B) Florida, Missouri B C) Hannibal, Missouri C

8. An American Literature Quiz Question 2: Edgar Allan Poe’s works include: The Crow A The Phantom Tollbooth B The Tell-Tale Heart C

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