Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's Heaven on Earth.
Referred to as Mark Twain by people who don't know that this was just a pseudonym, Samuel Clemens was an incredibly prolific American author who lived through the times that helped to shape American culture. For better or for worse, he, himself, played an important role in shaping that culture.
There is a ton of work by Clemens that is purely autobiographical, so much is known of his life. He often described himself as 'very nearly' having loads of interesting adventures. This can be seen in The Private History of a Campaign that Failed, where he describes how he was 'very nearly' a hero in the American Civil War. In Roughing It he writes about how he was 'very nearly' a wealthy gold miner. In between he made his living piloting riverboats and editing newspapers. It is difficult to say which of the two professions was more dangerous. He very nearly got killed at both posts on a regular basis.
His most famous work is Huckleberry Finn, an innocent story that has managed to get itself banned from many schools and libraries in the US on the offchance that it might offend somebody. Because of this, he is rarely studied in school, and none of his works are considered classics1.
Despite this lack of status, however, the novels Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court have been made and remade into films more often than any other works, save possibly Shakepeare's.
Clemens is often called the 'father of satire' by people who would much rather spend their time writing praises about him than writing their own stuff. In fact, more has probably written about him than was actually written by him, so it's probably best if we just stop right here.
1 However this lack of status probably would not have bothered him as he offered the following definition of a classic - 'A book which people praise and don't read'.
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