Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer for a time, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled in the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner, Gilded Age in 1873. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi (1883), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He died of a… heart attack on April 21, 1910.
Ivan Goncharov (18121891) was the son of a rich merchant family, spent most of his life as a civil servant, and published three novels. David Magarshack was known for his many translations from his native Russian, including works by Dostoyevsky. Milton Ehre is Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.