Sam Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in the small village of Florida, Missouri. He was small and sickly, and his parents wondered if he would live out the night.
Fortunately for American readers, he did. When “Little Sammy” was four, the family moved to Hannibal, a larger town in Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Hannibal was so full of interesting things to do that Sam later called it a “boy’s paradise.”
