Thus the book is both a work of literary criticism and of cultural history. Throughout the book, Ziff examines Twain's writings in light ofthe literary cultures of his day-from frontier humorists to Matthew Arnold-and of parallel literary works of his time-comparing, for example, A Connecticut Yankee with major utopian works of the same decade.

He offers particularly telling insight into Twain's travel writings, providing for example an insightful account of Following the Equator, perhaps Twain's most underrated work. Ziff offers a lively account of Twain's early years, explores all his major fiction, and concludes with a consideration ofhis craftsmanship and his strength as a cultural critic. He was a literary genius whorevolutionized the national literature, yet was unable to resist whatever quirky notion or joke that crossed his mind, often straying from his plot or contradicting his theme. He satirized the rapacious economic practices of his society, yet was caught up in those very practices himself.

His humor made him rich and famous, but he was unhappy with the role of humorist. Mark Twain emerges in this book as something of a paradox. With a worldwide fame greater than that of statesmen, scientists, or entertainers, Twain was in his own words 'the most conspicuous man on the planet.' Now, in this wonderful recounting of his career, Larzer Ziff offers an incisive,illuminating look at one of the giants of American letters. Mark Twain towered above the American literary landscape. Samuel Clemens left us one of our most American of lives. His comments on everything he saw, many published here for the first time, are priceless.The man that emerges in Powers's brilliant telling is both the magnetic, acerbic, and hilarious Mark Twain of myth and a devoted friend, husband, and father. He became the toast of Europe and a celebrity who toured the globe. He wooed and won his lifelong devoted wife, yet quietly pined for the girl who was his first crush. As his fame as a humorist and lecturer spread around the country, he took the East Coast by storm. He skirted the western theater of the Civil War before taking off for an uproarious drunken newspaper career in the Nevada of the Wild West. With the assistance of the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley, he has drawn on thousands of letters and notebook entries, many only recently discovered.Sam Clemens left his frontier boyhood in Missouri for a life on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats.

He offers Sam Clemens as he lived, breathed, and wrote. InMark Twain,Ron Powers consummates years of research with atour de forceon the life of our culture's founding father.

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