Business and Economics

doi:10.1017/9781108617208.018

Chapter 16 - Business and Economics

from Part III - Historical and Cultural Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2019

Lawrence Howe

Edited by

John Bird

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John Bird: Affiliation:
Winthrop University

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Summary

In addition to being a writer, Mark Twain was a businessman, although almost always a failure. He was an inventor who tried to market his ideas, with mixed results. He founded his own publishing company when he grew tired of dealing with publishers, and for a time he was successful, although that too ended in bankruptcy. Like others in the Gilded Age, which he named, he was an investor, again with mixed and finally disastrous results. Although he criticized his age as one of monetary grasping, he himself was fully inculcated in his age. He lived in an age of great economic change, and his works reflect a tortured relationship with money and economics.

Keywords

Mark Twain Samuel Clemens business economics investments bankruptcy

Type: Chapter
Information: Mark Twain in Context , pp. 161 - 170

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108617208.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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References

Works Cited

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