Mark Twain - Hardcover

Powers, Ron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743285794 ISBN 13: 9780743285797

Publisher: Scribner, 2006

Synopsis

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.

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Review

"Powers brings enthusiasm and depth of understanding to this richly enjoyable portrait." -- "Independent" "Powers argues that his predecessors tend to be "scholarly critics" in whose efforts the human being, [Twain's] voice and humour go missing. This Pulitzer prize-winning life captivatingly succeeds where they failed, finding a way of writing that is coloured by Twain's verbal larkiness but never merely imitates him." -- "Guardian" "There is nothing jaded or recycled about Ron Powers's masterly portrait....He does justice to a comic, tragic, inspiring American life, and the reader shares his unwillingness to let go when it is time for Twain to die in the final, heart-stopping paragraph." -- Paperback of the Week, "Observer" "A sweeping account of the personality and career of the man who, Powers writes, 'found a voice for his country'...Mr. Powers skillfully places his subject in historical context [and] quite rightly focuses on Twain's pitch-perfect ear and keen eye...A convincing portrait of Twain as a volatile, moody, guilt-ridden, desperately insecure man who was often a puzzle to himself."-- "The New York Times" "An impressive achievement...This book earns an honored place on the shelf of essential works on Mark Twain...Ron Powers has done justice to an incomparably complex, rich, fruitful, and tangled life, and along the way he has granted us a glimpse into the heart of America, as well as the heart of America's greatest writer."-- "San Francisco Chronicle" "Powers has given us the whole man. We feel we know him, as well as we can, as well as his most perceptive friend and fellow writer William Dean Howells knew him. Along the way Powers brings to vivid life Twain's America...No biography of Mark Twain could do him full justice. Powers' comes as close as you can imagine."-- "Los Angeles Times" "Like Twain's greatest works, this is a book that transcends its boundaries, giving us not merely one man, but America itself. It is a tremendous achievement and anybody even vaguely interested in the subject should read it."-- "The London Telegraph" "A weighty and witty biography that comes as close as any to providing the essential biography...Powers makes Twain come alive as a three-dimensional, deeply flawed, immensely gifted and wonderfully intriguing writer."-- "The Cleveland Plain Dealer" "Magisterial...almost certainly will become the go-to guide."-- "The Denver Post"

About the Author

Ron Powers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Emmy Award-winning writer and critic, is the author of ten books and the co-author of two, including the #1 New York Times bestseller FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (Pimlico).

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0743285794
• ISBN 13: 9780743285797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 704