Sorry, I hope my posting didn't sound too curt.

Had another look at Wikipedia, because I couldn't think of the name I associate with Twain's childhood, which, of course, is Hannibal, Missouri:

"When Twain was four, his family moved to Hannibal,[10] a port town on the Mississippi River that served as the inspiration for the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[11] At that time, Missouri was a slave state in the Union, and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he later explored in his writing."

I love _Huckleberry Finn_. Never could stand Tom Sawyer, neither the book nor the snotty brat himself. I love some of the later, less humorous and more caustic things he wrote, which were published after his death.

Shameless plug warning! Here are a couple of illustrations for a project of mine based on "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven":

http://lfinsto1.deviantart.com/art/Title-page-19473644
http://lfinsto1.deviantart.com/art/S-Flying-Through-Space-19473756
http://lfinsto1.deviantart.com/art/Sailor-on-Freighter-19453969

(If anyone wants to look at them, the second and third pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them with the left mouse button.)