ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Other Pen Names and Pseudonyms Before 1862, Clemens signed humorous sketches as “Josh.” Samuel Clemens used the name “Sieur Louis de Conte” for “Joan of Arc” (1896). He also used the pseudonym “Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass” for three humorous pieces he contributed to Keokuk Post.

Detailed explanation-2: -The correct answers for the given blanks are as follows:-Mark twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a) who was one of (b) the greatest fiction writers of America. He grew up in a small town (C) on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Detailed explanation-3: -Why is Samuel Langhorne Clemens known as Mark Twain? He adopted the pen name in early 1863 when he was a newspaperman in Nevada. It referred to his steamboating days, when the measure of the depth of the water was expressed with a crewman’s cry “mark twain!, ” meaning two fathoms, or 12 feet.

Detailed explanation-4: -In 1873, The Nevada Sentinel reported that the name came from Clemens’s habit of spending his nights drinking at the Old Corner saloon in Virginia City, a bar that “always had an account with the balance against him” tallied in chalk marks on the wall.