FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America's first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn't long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.
In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care.
Drawing on Twain's bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country's westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ron Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for his first book, The House of Morgan, and his second book, The Warburgs, won the Eccles Prize as the Best Business Book of 1993. His biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan, was a national bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
Read this book and join over 300,000 other readers with a free Library Online Book Club subscription
Subscribe
Catalog
Online Book Clubs
- Online Book Clubs is a fun way to discover and read books on your web browser, smartphone or tablet.
- Subscribe to the clubs for free to get access to the first few chapters of a new book. Receive a 5-minute read daily for 5 days.
- Author Buzz and Kids Buzz: exclusive weekly service featuring 4-5 authors, up close and personal. Authors offer free signed copies of their books and dozens of other free giveaways every week.
