He was America's most popular author, but also renowned platform lecturer. He lived from 1835 to 1910. Used "romantic" type literature with comedy to entertain his audiences. In 1873 along with the help of Charles Dudley Warner he wrote The Gilded Age. This is why the time period is called the "Gilded Age". The greatest contribution he made to American literature was the way he captured the frontier realism and humor through the dialect his characters use.