Samuel Clemens

The pen name and literary identity of Samuel Langhorne Clemens — Mark Twain — the defining voice of American literature and arguably the greatest American humorist.

American literary voice: Twain's use of vernacular American speech (especially in Huckleberry Finn) created a distinctly American literary language, departing from the elevated diction of the European novel. Hemingway's claim: 'All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.' Satire and moral force: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court — consistently undermining conventional morality through humor and human sympathy. His later work (The Mysterious Stranger, Letters from the Earth) is bleakly nihilistic.