The American Claimant is an 1892 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. Twain wrote the novel with the help of phonographic dictation, the first author according to Twain himself to do so.This was also according to Twain an attempt to write a book without mention of the weather, the first of its kind in fictitious literature although the first sentence of the second paragraph references weather fine, breezy morning. Indeed, all the weather is contained in an appendix, at the back of the book, which the reader is encouraged to turn to from time to time.