Twain, Mark
Revered American writer and wit, born Samuel Clemens (1835) in Florida, Missouri; author of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1884), and one of the first Americans, in 1866, to offer a published account of surfing—or "surf-bathing" as Twain called it. Twain, 30, was virtually unknown when he visited the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii as a $20-dollar-an-article travel correspondent fo...
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"Surf-Bathing—Failure," from Mark Twain's Roughing ItSubscribe to view
Mark TwainSubscribe to view
Detail from cover of Roughing It, first edition Subscribe to view
"Surf-bathing — Success," from Mark Twain's Roughing ItSubscribe to view
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/e1d1dd968c44a9b65a3109749a6c2b0fcb8140c0-900x857.jpg?rect=0,96,900,506&w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
"Surf-Bathing—Failure," from Mark Twain's Roughing It
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/76de6707b8ab66a3c1df0761803cb46be1eb35d5-607x900.jpg?rect=0,194,607,341&w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Mark Twain
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/960d42f04b9449db830a805ddbdbfab7ce7b1773-500x281.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Detail from cover of Roughing It, first edition
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/80aaec59111374562b33b4baf1c61281408e9909-900x684.jpg?rect=0,178,900,506&w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
"Surf-bathing — Success," from Mark Twain's Roughing It