<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910) is best known in history by his pen name, Mark Twain.

Twain wrote many allegory stories and ventured into fantasy in order to mine contemporary moral dilemmas of the day.

Connection to Halley's Comet

Twain felt a kinship with Comet Halley, since he was born during a year it appeared, 1909, Twain said:

I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.

He died in 1910, the year the comet returned to the skies of Earth in a brilliant, blazing glory.

As a character in genre fiction

Because of his fame and his life during the Victorian Era, Twain has appeared as a fictionalized character in several steampunk works. In addition, he has appeared in fictional form in other genre works. A partial list follows:

• A episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Time's Arrow"
• He is one of the main characters in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series.
• "The Ballad of Steely Joe", an episode of The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
• Wonder of the Worlds a science fiction novel of Mars exploration by Sesh Her.

Genre work

The following sci fi related works were written by Mark Twain:

• The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865) in the New York Saturday Press
• The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
• The Mysterious Stranger (1890)
• Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1895)
• Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (1909)
• Letters from the Earth (1909)