Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain (1835-1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, but grew up on the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri. He happily lived as a river pilot on the Mississippi River until the Civil War ended river traffic. In 1861, after deserting the Confederate army, Twain moved west. It was in the West that he wrote “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County.” Throughout his life Twain enjoyed entertaining Americans with his whimsical writings; but below the surface, Twain was a complicated, and, many felt, a bitter man. At the end of his life, Mark Twain said, “Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”

The protagonist, Hank Morgan, whose name the reader does not know until the end of the novel, was the chief foreman at a firearms factory in Hartford, Connecticut. He was constantly inventing innovative ways to make firearms. Supervising more than a thousand men had also taught Morgan how to handle people; however, he had a fight with a bully named Hercules who hit him in the head with a crowbar.

When Morgan awoke, he was lying under an oak tree. A man clothed in metal and colorful cloth took Morgan captive to the man’s home in Camelot. Morgan had been captured by Sir Kay of King Arthur’s Roundtable. He was presented before a court led by Merlin, the nefarious magician. Merlin quickly decreed that Morgan should die at noon, June 21, A.D. 528. Morgan remembered that on June 21, A.D. 528 a total eclipse of the sun would occur. This might be his salvation!

The appointed day came and Morgan was to be burned at the stake. While the fire grew around him, Morgan stood with his hands pointing toward the sun. The world became dark! Morgan, then, released the “spell” and of course he was released. He subsequently replace the irascible Merlin as Arthur’s adviser, and the unhappy magician was cast into prison.

Though he was now the second most powerful person in the kingdom, Morgan missed many things from the 19th century. He, therefore, began to recreate the 19th century in the 6th century! His only opposition was from the Roman Catholic Church.

Three years passed. Sir Sagramor, challenged Morgan to a duel. To prepare himself for the encounter, Morgan decided to go on a quest. He had many great adventures. During this quest, he once again shamed Merlin by causing a dry well to hold water again (something Merlin could not do).

He and King Arthur, pretending to be common people, traveled all over the kingdom and they were horrified at the plight of the common people.

Because of a misunderstanding he and Arthur were condemned to die. At this point, Morgan found a telephone, informed Camelot of what was happening, and received the reassurance that five hundred knights would rush to London. At the last moment, Lancelot with his five hundred knights saved Morgan and Arthur. They were riding bicycles!

Morgan was still faced with a duel against Sir Sagramor. Morgan easily lassoed him and pull him from his horse. After Merlin stole Morgan’s lasso Morgan shot Sagramor with a homemade pistol.

Arthur instituted great social changes. Morgan married and Sandy his wife had a little girl. Morgan took his family on vacation, and, while he was away, Sir Lancelot lead a revolt and destroyed much of Camelot.

They dug trenches and put up electric fences. Thousands of enemy knights were killed but Morgan was stabbed. An old woman tried to nurse Morgan. The nurse was a disguised Merlin!

A poisonous gas given off by the rotting corpses killed everyone – except Morgan. Morgan was able to sleep for thirteen hundred years – until he work up once again in his own 19th century.

Few authors are as well know, and well read, as Charles Dickens.

When Dickens was twelve, his father, John, was imprisoned for debt, an event that Dickens considered the most terrible experience of his life. Removed from school and put to work in a blacking (shoe-dye) factory, he lived alone, ashamed and frightened, in a lodging house in North London. It is from this experience that most of Dickens’ novels arose.
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William Faulkner (1897-1962) arguably was the greatest American author of all time, and may have been the greatest author in the world. Faulkner came from an old Mississippi family, joined the Canadian Air Force during the First World War, studied for a while at the University of Mississippi. Except for some trips to Europe and Asia, and a few brief stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he worked on his novels and short stories on a farm in Oxford.

Faulkner not only wrote novels, he created a new world! He invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South, but he did more. His characters represented all mankind. Each story and each novel contributed to the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. Inevitably each story is a derivation on the theme of the decay of the old South, as represented by the Sartoris and Compson families, and the emergence of ruthless newcomers, the Snopeses.
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Richard Adams wrote his first novel, Watership Down, when he was in his late 40s. The novel won him the Carnegie Medal and was a huge success in the marketplace. Adams has written several other novels, including Shardik (1974), The Plague Dogs (1977), and Traveller (1988). In 1991, he published an autobiography, The Day Gone By, and five years later published the sequel to Watership Down, entitled Tales From Watership Down (1996). But none were as successful as Watership Down. Much of Watership Down takes place in the area where Richard Adams grew up. Although the novel is fantasy, it is geographically accurate.

However Watership Down is read—as an environmental critique or simply as a book about the search for a home and life—it is undoubtedly greatly influenced by social events of the 21st century.
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