Benton executed this lithograph of Huck Finn in 1936, from drawings
generated for his mural in the Missouri State Capitol. This 215/s" x WA"
lithograph was printed in an edition of 100.
Thomas Hart Benton's
Huck Finn Illustrations
Commemorate Mark Twain
BY MARY K. DAINS*
This year, 1985, marks several important anniversary events in
the life of Missouri author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popularly
known as Mark Twain. One hundred fifty years ago, on November
30, 1835, Twain was born in northeastern Missouri in the little town
of Florida, Monroe County. The son of John Marshall and Jane
Lampton Clemens, Twain's parents moved their family to Hannibal. Twain was four years old at the time. He spent his boyhood
years in Hannibal and later narrated many of his experiences in the
noted classics, the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn. The latter originally was published in the
United States one hundred years ago.
Twain died seventy-five years ago, on April 21, 1910, at his
residence in Redding, Connecticut. He is buried at Elmira, New
*Mary K. Dains is an associate editor of the Missouri Historical Review.
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