Mark Twain - Episode Guide

Samuel Langhorne Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America's best known and best-loved author.

Ken Burns takes a journey along the Mississippi River to the little town of Hannibal, MO, where Samuel Clemens grew up. As he moved from adventure to adventure, Clemens evolved into Mark Twain, the humorist and writer who changed the way Americans saw themselves and their language. This episode pauses with the publication of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

Explore the other side of Twain, the man—an American icon who falls hard through tragedy and bad financial decisions. An inept businessman who squanders his fortune on pipe-dream patents and bad investments, Twain turns to the lecture circuit and tours extensively, leaving behind his beloved Hartford home to pay off his creditors.

The conclusion of Mark Twain's biography.