Mark Twain

by RonPowers (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.25

  'Who was Mark Twain? On our side of the Atlantic we think of him as the author of a couple of imperishable boys' adventures - those of Tom Sawyer and his uncivilisable friend Huckleberry Finn, the picturesque chronicler of the life on the Mississippi river in the days of the early 19th century. But over there he is a national monument; not only the most famous American author of his time, but perhaps of all time...This exhaustive and enthusiastic biography gives a finely detailed and colourful picture of the rough, tough society of the American South and West before the civil war' DAILY MAIL

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.25

  If Mark Twain was the seminal American writer, he was also an international celebrity whose life was every bit as extraordinary as his writing. Ron Powers, an award-winning author and critic with twenty years' worth of experience studying Twain and his art, combines enormous learning with wonderful storytelling in a masterful story of the man behind the writing. Twain's story is epic, comic and tragic. To retrace it all in illuminating detail, Powers draws on the tens of thousands of Twain's letters and on his astonishing journal entries - many of which are quoted here for the first time. Twain left Missouri for a life on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats, enjoyed an uproariously drunken newspaper career in the Nevada of the Wild West, and witnessed and joined the extremes of wealth and poverty of New York City and of the Gilded Age. Through it all he observed, borrowed, stole and combined the characters he met into the voice of America's greatest literature, attracting throngs of fans wherever his undying lust for wandering took him. From Twain's wicked satire to his relationships with the likes of Ulysses Grant, this is a brilliantly written story that astounds, amuses and edifies as only a great life can.