【推荐1】Samuel Langhorne Clemens, more commonly     1     (know) as Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida. Twain is considered     2     greatest author and humorist of the 19th-century American literature (文学).

In 1839 the Clemens family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River where he was brought     3    . Like many authors of his day he had little formal education. His education came from the print shops and newspaper offices     4     he worked as a youth. In 1853 Twain left Hannibal to travel. On a trip to New Orleans he persuaded a riverboat pilot     5     (teach) him his skill. By the spring of 1859 Twain was a licensed riverboat pilot.

After a(n)     6     (success) attempt at gold and silver mining he joined the staff of a newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada. He first wrote under the pen name Mark Twain in 1863.

He continued to travel as a reporter for various newspapers, and in 1869 his travel letters from Europe     7     (collect) into the popular book The Innocents Abroad. Between 1873 and 1889 he wrote seven novels     8     (include) his Mississippi River books.

    9     Twain’s life and career progressed he lost much of the humorous style of his earlier years. What was expressed more and more in his later works was     10     human beings are selfish. Even so Twain is best remembered as a great humorist.

One important feature of classic literature is that it often     1     (reflect) an author’s own experiences and can therefore help us understand the important issues of his or her time. This is one reason     2     the best works of literature still appeal to readers long after they     3     (write). Cao Xueqin’s A Dream of Red Mansions, one of the most     4     (significance) novels in Chinese literature, is a good example of this. Its storyline follows the fall of a large wealthy family much like the author’s own. No doubt     5     (draw) on his own experiences, Cao Xueqin gives a detailed description of     6     life was like at that time. The novel contains a great number of     7     (detail) such as what the upper class wore and ate. It also describes the social relation in 18th-century China. As a result, readers are capable     8     better understanding the gap between the rich and poor, men and women, the     9     (learn) and the uneducated in the historical context. Cultural and historical elements like these make A Dream of Red Mansions a timeless classic.    10    (general) speaking, we can learn much about a specific period in history from classic literature.