Life on the Mississippi - Wikipedia Life on the Mississippi From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Life on the Mississippi Cover of the original U.S. edition, 1883 Author Mark Twain Country United States and England Language English Genre Biography Publisher James R. Osgood & Co., Boston (U.S. edition) Chatto & Windus, London (English edition) Publication date 1883 Media type Print Pages 624 [1] Preceded by The Prince and the Pauper  Followed by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  Life on the Mississippi (1883) is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. It is also a travel book, recounting his trip up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Saint Paul many years after the war. Contents 1 Overview 2 Publication 3 Dramatic adaptations 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Overview[edit] The book begins with a brief history of the river as reported by Europeans and Americans, beginning with the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1542.[2] It continues with anecdotes of Twain's training as a steamboat pilot, as the 'cub' (apprentice) of an experienced pilot, Horace E. Bixby. He describes, with great affection, the science of navigating the ever-changing Mississippi River in a section that was first published in 1876, entitled "Old Times on the Mississippi". Although Twain was actually 21 when he began his training, he uses artistic license to make himself seem somewhat younger, referring to himself as a "fledgling" and a "boy" who "ran away from home" to seek his fortune on the river, and playing up his own callowness and naïveté. In the second half, Twain narrates his trip many years later on a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans, shortly followed by a steamboat journey from New Orleans to St Paul (with a stop at his boyhood home town of Hannibal, MO). He describes the competition from railroads, and the new, large cities, and adds his observations on greed, gullibility, tragedy, and bad architecture. He also tells some stories that are most likely tall tales. Publication[edit] Simultaneously published in 1883 in the United States and Great Britain, the book is the first submitted to a publisher as a typewritten manuscript.[3] Twain did not, however, use the typewriter himself. His secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, typed from Twain's manuscript.[4] Dramatic adaptations[edit] Main article: Life on the Mississippi (film) In 1980, the book was adapted as a TV movie for American public television, with David Knell performing as Sam Clemens (Mark Twain's real name) and Robert Lansing as Horace Bixby, the steamboat pilot who mentored him. The film used many tall tales from the book, woven into a fictional narrative. In 2010, Life on the Mississippi was adapted as a stage musical, with book and lyrics by Douglas M. Parker and music by Denver Casado. It was produced that year in Kansas City, Missouri, and Door County, Wisconsin. In 2013, Life on the Mississippi, a musical play by Philip W. Hall, was performed at the Workshop Theater Company in New York. It was directed by Susannah Frazer. See also[edit] George Washington Cable Lagniappe Joseph Alexander Mabry, Jr. Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum Mud clerk Paddle steamer Pennsylvania steamboat Riverboat Steamboat Steamboats of the Mississippi References[edit] ^ Facsimile of the original 1st edition. ^ Twain, Mark; Clemens, Samuel L. (2000) [1883]. Life on the Mississippi. Mineola, NY: Dover. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-486-41426-3.and Facsimile copy of the First edition, page 26"[...] De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi River, saw it in 1542 [...]" ^ "The First Typewriter". Rehr, Darryl. Archived from the original on 2009-02-01. Retrieved 2009-02-16. ^ Dobson, James E. (2017). Modernity and Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America. Palgrave. pp. 9–11. ISBN 978-3-319-67321-9. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Life on the Mississippi Wikisource has original text related to this article: Life on the Mississippi Life on the Mississippi at Project Gutenberg Life on the Mississippi at Faded Page (Canada) Life on the Mississippi from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Life on the Mississippi public domain audiobook at LibriVox IMDb entry for PBS movie v t e Mark Twain Bibliography Novels The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper Adventures of Huckleberry Finn A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The American Claimant Tom Sawyer Abroad Pudd'nhead Wilson Tom Sawyer, Detective Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc A Double Barrelled Detective Story A Horse's Tale The Mysterious Stranger Hellfire Hotchkiss Short stories "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" "Cannibalism in the Cars" "General Washington's Negro Body-Servant" "My Late Senatorial Secretaryship" "Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls" "A Literary Nightmare" "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" "The Invalid's Story" "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" "1601" "The Stolen White Elephant" "Luck" "The Million Pound Bank Note" "A Double Barrelled Detective Story" "Those Extraordinary Twins" "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" "A Dog's Tale" "Extracts from Adam's Diary" "The War Prayer" "Eve's Diary" "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" "My Platonic Sweetheart" "The Private Life of Adam and Eve" "Advice to Little Girls" "The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine" Collections Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance Sketches New and Old A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches Mark Twain's Library of Humor Merry Tales The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches The Washoe Giant in San Francisco Plays Is He Dead? Colonel Sellers Colonel Sellers as a Scientist Essays "The Awful German Language" "On the Decay of the Art of Lying" "Advice to Youth" "English As She Is Taught" How to Tell a Story and Other Essays "Concerning the Jews" "A Salutation Speech From the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth" "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" "To My Missionary Critics" "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" "What Is Man?" "Queen Victoria's Jubilee" "The United States of Lyncherdom" "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" Letters from the Earth Non-fiction Territorial Enterprise letters Letters from Hawaii The Innocents Abroad Roughing It Old Times on the Mississippi A Tramp Abroad Life on the Mississippi Following the Equator Is Shakespeare Dead? Autobiography of Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography) Mark Twain's Notebook King Leopold's Soliloquy The Private History of a Campaign That Failed Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire The Bible According to Mark Twain Christian Science Speeches "Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism" "Votes for Women" Places and events Family cabin Birthplace State Historic Site State Park Boyhood home and museum Mark Twain Cave Mark Twain in Nevada Territorial Enterprise Sagebrush School Mark Twain House Stormfield Twain–Ament indemnities controversy Popular culture Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Mark Twain Tonight! The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) Mark Twain (2001 documentary) Twain and Shaw Do Lunch (2011 play) Mark Twain: The Musical Family Olivia Langdon Clemens (wife) Susy Clemens (daughter) Clara Clemens (daughter) Jean Clemens (daughter) John M. Clemens (father) Orion Clemens (brother) Related Jap Herron Authority control BNF: cb11957459b (data) GND: 4264511-6 VIAF: 179374558 WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 179374558 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Life_on_the_Mississippi&oldid=993810306" Categories: 1883 non-fiction books Mississippi River Books by Mark Twain Non-fiction books about racism American memoirs Hidden categories: Articles with Project Gutenberg links Articles with LibriVox links Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français Italiano Latina Edit links This page was last edited on 12 December 2020, at 16:45 (UTC). 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