Mark Twain 
Life on the Mississippi 

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, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans many years after the war.

About the author

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.

His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called ‘The Great American Novel’.
(from wikipedia.org)