Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain s memoir of his youthful years as a cub pilot on a steamboat paddling up and down the Mississippi River. Twain used his childhood experiences growing up along the Mississippi in a number of works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but nowhere is the river and the pilot s life more thoroughly described than in this work. Told with insight, humor, and candor, Life on the Mississippi is an American classic.