The Jumping Frog

Come to Angel's Mining Camp in California and meet Smiley whose frog is a living gold mine, until one day... Discover some incredible Western remedies for Curing a Cold. There is a wealth of rare background information about California during the Gold Rush period and about California today, as well as a 'sing along' of old western songs!

Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was born in Florida, Missouri, U.S.A. in 1835. When he was a young boy he lived a happy life in Hannibal, Missouri, on he Mississippi River. In 1857 he worked as a pilot on a steamboat on the Mississippi. He liked traveling on this big river.

After the American Civil War started in 1861, Mark Twain went to California to look for gold. This was the time of the California Gold Rush.

In California, Twain's life changed. He began writing stories for a San Francisco newspaper, and he changed his real name, Samuel Clemens, to Mark Twain, a pen name.

His short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was a great success in 1865. Twain was now a famous writer. He traveled to Europe, The Holy Land and Hawaii. He wrote about his travels in The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872).

Twain married Olivia "Livy" Langdon, a rich woman from New England, and had three daughters. He lived in Hartford, Connecticut with His family and wrote his three great books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Life on the Mississippi (1883) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). In these books he remembered his youth on the Mississippi River. His other works include The Prince and the Pauper (1880), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and many short stories.

At the end of his life, Twain was a very sad man because he lost his two daughters. He died in 1910 at the age of seventy-five. Mark Twain was the first American writer to change the American way of writing, with his lively humour and satire.

A Note on Mark Twain

A Map of California's Gold Mining Camps

The California Gold Rush



The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County



1. A Letter from the East

2. Bets and Races

3. Daniel Webster

4. A Stranger at Angel’s Camp

5. The Big Bet



Curing A Cold

1. The First Sneeze

2. The Remedies

3. The San Francisco Remedy



Two Old Western Ballads



Red River Valley

Clementine