Mark Twain 
Old Times on the Mississippi (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

 In this 1871 memoir— drawing from the life experiences that also produced Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn—Twain tells how he achieved his boyhood dream of navigating a steamboat along the treacherous, ever-changing banks of the great river. Written for William Dean Howells’s
Atlantic magazine, this is the original, shorter version of
Life on the Mississippi. This edition also contains the story ‘A Literary Nightmare.’

About the author

Mark Twain (1835–1910), born Samuel Clemens, is said to be America’s greatest humorist. William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. Ernest Hemmingway added, “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain.” He was referring to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.