Mark Twain

Mark Twain - Paperback

$25.00
$25.00
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Mark Twain
  • Mark Twain
Mark Twain - Paperback

Mark Twain - Paperback

by Ron Chernow
$25.00
$25.00
Format
Hardcover $45.00 Paperback $25.00

Book Overview

The #1 New York Times Bestseller - One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025- A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book - Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME, The Guardian, 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, he would become America's first, and most influential, literary celebrity, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize. 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. Twain 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 and, to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered many family tragedies, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.

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 Drawing on Twain's bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country's westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the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. 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.
ISBN9780525561743
Author Ron Chernow
PublisherPenguin Books
GenreBiography and History
FormatPaperback
PublishedJune 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages1200
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Nonfiction

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More by Ron Chernow

Mark Twain

Mark Twain - Paperback

Mark Twain - Paperback

By Ron Chernow

About Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow is the prizewinning author of six 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. A past president of PEN America, Chernow has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.

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