He was a riverboat pilot, newspaper reporter, penniless prospector, would-be entrepreneur, loving family man, world traveler, pomposity burster and raconteur. Then he passed away on April 21, 1910 at age 75 shorty after Halley's Comet returned as he predicted. This turns out that the man who created adventures for Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and a Connecticut Yankee led a mighty adventurous life himself. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) said, "Truth is a very valuable thing. I believe we should be economical with it." And that sets the tone for what follows: a biography about the immortal humorist's life from Hannibal boyhood to Big River exploits to global literary lion and more.