About Mark Twain
Mark Twain (1835–1910) was born Samuel L. Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri. He is one of the most popular and influential authors our nation has ever produced, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. He has been called not only the greatest humorist of his age but also the father of American literature.
About Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was an American novelist, poet, and journalist. He worked as a reporter of slum life in New York and a highly paid war correspondent for newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. He wrote many works of fiction, poems, and accounts of war, all well received but none as acclaimed as his 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage. Today he is considered one of the most innovative American writers of the 1890s and one of the founders of literary realism.
About Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce (1842–ca. 1914) was an American journalist, short-story writer, and poet. Born in Ohio, he served in the Civil War and then settled in San Francisco. He wrote for Hearst’s Examiner, his wit and satire making him the literary dictator of the Pacific coast and strongly influencing many writers. He disappeared into war-torn Mexico in 1913.
About Jack London
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist, and
social activist. Before making a living at his writing, he spent time as an
oyster pirate, a sailor, a cannery worker, a gold miner, and a journalist. He
was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and
was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large
fortune from his fiction writing. He is best known for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set during the Klondike
gold rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire,” “An Odyssey of the
North,” and “Love of Life.” He also
wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The
Heathen.” He was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the
rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics,
including The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.
About Patrick Fraley
Patrick Fraley has created voices for over four thousand characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animated programs. He holds an MFA in acting from Cornell University and is the author of the only character-voice curriculum ever to be accredited at the university level.
