Mark Twain

Life On The Mississippi Mark Twain

Much like his works of fiction, Mark Twain's non-fiction work Life on the Mississippi offers witty and sharp insight into human nature and Twain's own life upon the roaring river. Twain recounts the history of the mighty Mississippi river from its discovery by De Soto in 1542 to the rise of fall of steam boats and his personal experience learning to pilot these boats. In the book, Twain describes memories of being a boy learning as a cub-pilot under Captain Horace Bixby and eventually gaining his pilot's license. Twain morphs from an unsure and unconfident pupil, to the confident and head-strong man that would later write works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'n Head Wilson. He expresses the dangerous associated with traversing the river, including the uneven and ever-changing river, and the real possibility of mortal accidents like the explosion of the Pennsylvania that claimed the life of his brother Henry.

After a twenty-one year absence from the Mississippi River that saw the Civil War and the decline of the steam boat, Twain again returns with friends to travel the river that had inspired so much of his fiction. Twain nostalgically describes the beauty of the river, the stateliness of traveling by steam boat, and narrates legends and tall tales about those who interact and live upon the Mississippi as he travels the route he piloted when young. Twain reminiscences on the journey by ending his work saying, "and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I have ever had the good fortune to make" (365).