Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, was born in Florida on November 30, 1835. Of seven children, he was the sixth. Not only is he known for his writings, but he was also a famous journalist and comedian. He is known for producing magical writing that attracted a worldwide audience and earned him as a famous writer. To this day, Twain is highly remembered and many read his work.

Twain made a lot of money from his writing. Some of his famous works were The Golden Age, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court and Huckleberry Finn. A large part of this money was lost due to bad investments. These investments were mainly due to investments in new technologies, especially the Paige typesetting machine. It was a designed mechanical device that was known to amaze onlookers when it worked. The problem with this device was that it was prone to many breakdowns, so Mark Twain spent a whopping $ 300,000 on the device. Before the device was perfected, Linotype replaced it on the market. Because of this, Mark Twain lost a large part of the profits made from his books, as well as a large part of the money inherited from his wife Livy.

Mark Twain was very fascinated with science. He developed a strong friendship with Nikola Tesla. Together with Tesla he spent a lot of time in Tesla’s laboratory. Twain is said to have invented a new type of steam engine, the Kaolatype and baby bed clamp.

Another source of Twain’s financial troubles was the publisher. He also lost a large chunk of money through the publisher. The publisher enjoyed great initial success selling Ulysses S. Grant memorabilia. Shortly after this initial success, the publisher went bankrupt and lost a lot of money. This was due to the idea that it was similar to selling Ulysses S. Grant memorabilia. It was thought that the public would now be interested and would buy the biography of Pope Leo XIII. The idea backfired and only fewer than hundreds of copies were sold.

To recover financially, Mark Twain began lecturing alongside his writings. Together with his new friend he recovered financially. The lasting friendship lost in 1893 with Henry Huttleston Rogers, a financier, who was the director of Standard Oil. The recovery process began when Henry asked Twain to file for bankruptcy. After this, he asked Twain to grant his wife the copyright of his written works. This prevented creditors from seizing his works. Rogers then went on to take over Twain’s money entirely until all creditors were paid.

Finally, to fully pay off all creditors, Twain continued to lecture around the world, even though Twain had no legal obligation. In 1900, Twain returned to the United States after having earned enough to pay off his financial debts.