Overview

The #1 New York Times Bestseller • A Barack Obama Summer Reading List Pick • A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book • Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, and Kirkus Reviews “Comprehensive, enthralling . . . Mark Twain flows like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain’s own exuberance.” —The Boston Globe “Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . . For all its length and detail, [Mark Twain] is deeply absorbing throughout.” — The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain 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. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play. Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the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. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

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9780525561729

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Reviews

“Before Chernow became the biographer of the American heroes hiding in our wallet—Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, and most famously Alexander Hamilton—he was a chronicler of Morgans, Warburgs and Rockefellers . . . Enlightening and entertaining . . . Here, after covering Twain’s greatness, he has boldly written a book about the limitations of our body and mind, the traps of our reputation, the death of those we love and the embarrassing yearning for youth.” —Bloomberg “Chernow has produced a literary biography of the first rank . . . Chernow writes expressively but clearly . . . The heartiest compliment I can pay to Chernow is that at no point did I wish, as I first suspected I might, that I was reading a book by Twain instead of one about him.” —The American Conservative “Mark Twain by Ron Chernow is a dominating biography of an American icon . . . Ron Chernow’s Sam Clemens is human, all too human, and this is, to some degree, a measure of this biography’s excellence. Chernow’s Twain seems so real in his flaws that the caveat against meeting your heroes holds. This does nothing to undermine the brilliance of the artist . . . Ron Chernow, in this excellent and very human biography, challenges readers to meet an American original as he has emerged from deep research and lucid exposition.” —Redding Sentinel “Bestseller Chernow (Grant) again proves himself among his generation’s finest biographers with this magisterial account of the life of Mark Twain . . . Chernow’s razor-sharp portrait offers nuanced explorations of Twain’s many contradictions . . . Amply justifying the considerable page count, this stands as the new definitive biography of the revered author.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Remarkable . . . Chernow is an exceptional portraitist, adding depth and shadow to bring his subject fully to life. The impeccable research blends seamlessly into a narrative that examines Twain in all his guises: devoted family man, writer, publisher, entrepreneur, and inventor. Like his subject, Chernow has a keen ear for the perfect quote, insult, and witty rejoinder. This monumental achievement will stand as the definitive life of Mark Twain.” —Booklist (starred review) “Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.” —Kirkus (starred review) “Chernow has brought us as close to Twain as we are likely to get, and this nuanced portrait of an often conflicted man is a triumph.” —BookPage

Author Information

Ron Chernow is the prizewinning author of seven previous books and the recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal. His first book, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award, Washington: A Life won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and Alexander Hamilton—the inspiration for the Broadway musical—won the George Washington Book Prize. He has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and is one of only three living biographers to have won the Gold Medal for Biography of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A past president of PEN America, Chernow has been the recipient of nine honorary doctorates.

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