Considered one of the great American Realist writers, Mark Twain is not only celebrated for the stories he tells but also the way in which he tells them, with an unmatched ear for the English language and sensitivity to the diction of the common man. To flesh out his stories, Twain also drew heavily on his personal experiences, most notably his work as a riverboat captain on the Mississippi, and never shied from portraying everyday issues in starkly honest terms.
Twain was a master of conveying the local vernacular in his writing. Read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," for example, and you'll immediately "hear" the distinctive Southern dialect of that region.
For example, when Huck Finn attempts to help Jim, a slave, escape to freedom by paddling a canoe down the Mississippi, Jim thanks Huck profusely: "Huck you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had: en you's de only fren' olde Jim's got now." Later in the story, in chapter 19, Huck hides while he witnesses deadly violence between two feuding families:
"I staid in the tree till it begun to get dard, afraid to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log-store with guns; so I reckoned the trouble was still a going on."
