Ron Powers's tour de force has been widely acclaimed as the best life
and times, filled with Mark Twain's voice, and as a great American
story.
Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, invented the American voice
and became one of our greatest celebrities. His life mirrored his
country's, as he grew from a Mississippi River boyhood in the days of
the frontier, to a Wild-West journalist during the Gold Rush, to become
the king of the eastern establishment and a global celebrity as America
became an international power. Along the way, Mark Twain keenly observed
the characters and voices that filled the growing country, and left us
our first authentically American literature. Ron Powers's magnificent
biography offers the definitive life of the founding father of our
culture.