Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, essayist, and novelist. A native of Hannibal, Missouri, he grew up on the Mississippi and as an adult tried his hand as a printer, riverboat pilot, miner, and soldier. He was born when Comet Halley was in the sky and correctly predicted that he would die during its return. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is based on Twain's memories of antebellum Hannibal. Tom is hardly the ideal role model expected in 19th century children's literature-never really malevolent, he is nonetheless mischevious and overly imaginative. It is a marvelous portrait of the emotional world inhabited by many a ten-year-old boy, paling only in comparison with its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . This book is in the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing English developed in the mid-19th century at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah).