Life on the Mississippi

by

Mark Twain

0riginally published in 1883, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's memoir of his youthful years as a trainee pilot on a steamboat traveling up and down the Mississippi River. Twain used his childhood experiences growing up along the Mississippi in a number of works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but nowhere is the river and the pilot's life more thoroughly described than in this work. Told with insight, humor, and candor, Life on the Mississippi is an American classic.