Q 01/05

What was Mark Twain's real name?

A) Samuel Langhorne Clemens

B) Samuel Orion Clemens

C) John Marshall Clemens

D) Henry Langdon Clemens

Answer · why

A) Samuel Langhorne Clemens

He was the sixth of seven children; only three siblings survived childhood.

Q 02/05

Twain was born in 1835 in a village called Florida, in which state?

A) Kentucky

B) Tennessee

C) Missouri

D) Illinois

Answer · why

C) Missouri

The family moved to a Mississippi port town when he was four.

Q 03/05

Which Mississippi port town, Twain's boyhood home, became the fictional St. Petersburg?

A) Cairo

B) Hannibal

C) St. Louis

D) Keokuk

Answer · why

B) Hannibal

Slavery was legal there at the time and became a theme of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Q 04/05

After his father died in 1847, Twain left school after which grade to apprentice as a printer?

A) Fifth

B) Third

C) Eighth

D) Tenth

Answer · why

A) Fifth

He later educated himself in public libraries in the evenings and joined the printers' union at 18.

Q 05/05

Twain's brother Orion owned which newspaper, to which young Sam contributed sketches from 1851?

A) The Territorial Enterprise

B) The Buffalo Express

C) The Missouri Courier

D) The Hannibal Journal

Answer · why

D) The Hannibal Journal

Sam worked there as a typesetter before leaving at 18 to print in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinnati.