However, it seemed like only a few people knew who wrote those books, and if you are one of them, Samuel Langhorne Clemens is the person behind the masterpiece.
Clemens is most known by his pen name Mark Twain, and he is an American author, humorist, businessman, publisher, and lecturer. He was even hailed as “the father of American literature” by William Faulkner and praised by people as “the greatest humorist the United States has produced.”
Aside from his passion for novels or writings in general, Twain also has another thing he loves, and that is cigars. This may be attested to by his close friend, author William Dean Howells, who revealed in the book “My Mark Twain” acquired by Cigar Aficionado, how much the author enjoys smoking cigars.
“As he walked of course he talked, and of course he smoked. Whenever he had been a few days with us, the whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime.”
He always went to bed with a cigar in his mouth, and sometimes, mindful of my fire insurance, I went up and took it away, still burning, after he had fallen asleep. I do not know how much a man may smoke and live, but apparently he smoked as much as a man could, for he smoked incessantly.”
Twain loved cigars so much that he thought about giving them up, but he was unsuccessful. After that, he promised to smoke one cigar every day.
I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime; then, I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me every day and all day long. I found myself hunting for larger cigars; within the month, my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have used it as a crutch.”
He did, however, make an effort to give up smoking once he wed his wife Olivia in 1870 since she did not like cigar smoking. It was also the time when he received a commission to write his second novel, “Roughing It.”
This was a real challenge because, according to Justin Kaplan, the humorist smoked the most when writing and said, “He came almost to a full stop as a writer that year.”
Twain also remembers that event, stating, “I was three weeks writing six chapters then I gave up the fight, resumed my three hundred cigars [a month], burned the six chapters, and wrote the book in three months, without any bother or difficulty.”
I ordinarily smoke fifteen cigars during my five hours’ labor, and if my interest reaches the enthusiastic point, I smoke more. I smoke with all my might.”