Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who achieved worldwide renown as a writer under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri on 30 November 1835.
He left school at just eleven years old and began an apprenticeship as a typesetter.
In 1857, one of his life’s dreams came true – he had himself trained as a steersman and for several years piloted a Mississippi steamboat.
It is from this period that his literary pseudonym emerged: in sailors’ language, the cry of “Mark Twain” signaled a navigable depth of “two fathoms”.
Mark Twain, an avowed opponent of slavery and racial segregation, was the father of modern American literature.
He had a profound influence on later great writers such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.
His most popular books are known to most children. Twain’s books combine exciting and authentic stories about the Mississippi, the river to the banks of which Twain returned again and again, and which became for him the flow of his life.
The Montblanc Mark Twain Limited Edition marks the centenary of Mark Twain’s death in 2010.
The design of the writing instrument is also inspired by the river that had a lasting influence on Twain and his work: the sinuous curving lines on cap and barrel, made of deep-blue precious resin, reflect the shallow waves of the river, the top of the cap is shaped to resemble the Mississippi steamboat chimneys, whose steam is illustrated by ivory-coloured precious resin, the clip is formed by a stylized jew’s harp, a musical instrument that was popular in the Southern states in Twain’s time.
Platinum-plated mountings and the ivory-colored Montblanc emblem complete the distinctive character of the writing instrument.
The crowning features of this unique Limited Edition are Mark Twain’s signature and the number of the pen on the cap ring, and the two fathoms engraved on the rhodium-plated 18 K gold nib.