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1864-
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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 national sensation. The next year a trip to the
Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands yielded not only a series of
humorous travel letters to the Sacramento Union but also a serious article published in Harper's Magazine.
Furthermore, upon returning from this voyage, he launched a
career on the West Coast as a humorous lecturer that
continued until 1906.
In 1866 Twain became
a traveling correspondent of the Alta California. A number of letters he wrote for that
newspaper told the details of a journey eastward by boat;
another series of 17 letters told of his visits to New York
and the Middle West in 1867. A letter of June 23 told of his
spending a night in a station house in New York, charged
with disorderly conduct. Others told of visits to art
galleries, theaters, museums, and churches in New York and
of brief stays with his family. The year 1867 saw the
publication of Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveros County
--
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
a.k.a. Mark Twain
1835-1910
A month afterward I enjoyed my first earthquake. It was one which was long called the "great" earthquake, and is doubtless so distinguished till this day. It was just after noon, on a bright October day. I was coming down Third street. The only objects in motion anywhere in sight in that thickly built and populous quarter, were a man in a buggy behind me, and a street car wending slowly up the cross street. Otherwise, all was solitude and a Sabbath stillness. As I turned the corner, around a frame house, there was a great rattle and jar, and it occurred to me that here was an item!–no doubt a fight in that house.
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Mark Twain Describes the 1865 San Francisco Earthquake
The following news stories, sketches and essays are identified as coming from the pen of Mark Twain during his brief tenure as a newspaper reporter for the San Francisco Daily Morning Call between June and October 1864.
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Mark
Twain in the San Francisco Daily Morning Call
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