Fashioned from the same experiences that would inspire the masterpiece <b>Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi</b> is Mark Twain's most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. It is at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in the steamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing after the Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes and folktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain's life before he began to write.<br><br>Written in a prose style that has been hailed as among the greatest in English literature, <b>Life on the Mississippi</b> established Twain as not only the most popular humorist of his time but also America's most profound chronicler of the human comedy.