Life on the Mississippi

By Mark Twain

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Travel

Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's 1883 memoir of his years as a steamboat pilot and his return to the river two decades later. The first part describes how young Sam Clemens learned to pilot steamboats before the Civil War. The second part recounts his 1882 trip down the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans and up to St. Paul, describing the towns, people and changes he found. The book mixes history, anecdote and humor.