American novelist and humourist, born in Florida, Missouri. Worked as a printer before becoming a licenced river pilot on the Mississippi River, which served as the inspiration for his early novels of Tom ‚Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn‘. He travelled extensively through Germany spending much of his time in, what is now, Baden-Württemberg, writing accounts of his experiences in his book ‚A Tramp Abroad‘ – published in 1880. He said ‚Soaking in the Friedrichsbad, Baden-Baden, you loose track of the world in 20 minutes‘. He went to Heilbronn and from there rafted down the River Neckar to Heidelberg.
He spoke German, though loved to make fun at it’s complexities with characteristic humour.
