Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography
by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dayton Duncan, Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken BurnsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-13
ISBN: 0375405615
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography
Book Review: Lavish and engrossing...
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an intimate journey into the the persona of Samuel L. Clemens and the times in which he lived. It's a great read for anyone new to American history. A brilliant retrospective, it is lavishly photographed on smooth, glossy pages and embellished with anecdotes by Twain and modern students of the great author (such as Hal Holbrook, who offers his insights to this character study). This book will inspire you to learn more about America during "The Gilded Age", and to want to read more of Twain's books.
I did see pieces of the Ken Burns film and have it on order at the library - I decided to purchase this book shortly after that airing. Always having been a fan of Mark Twain, it is painful to go into it and read very personal things about his life, his habits, and the tone in which he went about creating his relationships, especially with his family... He was more than just an intense personality - he was a dominant figure who enjoyed it with relish. He was a revolutionary of modern technology, always open to trying new things and investing in inventions which made him rich. He was excited by his life and the changing times; he loved all the potentials available to him, being American. He was also sensitive to the nature of human beings and their mis-use of power due to ignorance; however upon reading this book I do credit such sensitivity to his relationship with his mother and other women. It is clear that he loved women and women were in awe of him. He was probably more honest about his observances of other people than he was about himself. He was the kind of person who was able to raise hell and get away with it. Eventually the impact of his bombastic ways would take a toll on everyone around him.
Twain took great risks throughout his life, financially, making himself one of the richest men in the new world. At the same time, he blew his fortune extravagantly and had to eventually file for bankruptcy. He understood the work ethic of what it meant to be successful, continuing to work up until the time of his death to pay off his debts. He was world traveled; a chain-smoker, and a braggart with horrendous mood-swings. All of this, of course, took its toll on those closest to him! This is the untold story documenting what happened.
Summary of Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography
Ernest Hemingway called Huckleberry Finn "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since." Critical opinion of this book hasn't dimmed since Hemingway uttered these words; as author Russell Banks says in these pages, Twain "makes possible an American literature which would otherwise not have been possible." He was the most famous American of his day, and remains in ours the most universally revered American writer. Here the master storytellers Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan give us the first fully illustrated biography of Mark Twain, American literature's touchstone, its funniest and most inventive figure.This book pulls together material from a variety of published and unpublished sources. It examines not merely his justly famous novels, stories, travelogues, and lectures, but also his diaries, letters, and 275 illustrations and photographs from throughout his life. The authors take us from Samuel Langhorne Clemens's boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, to his time as a riverboat worker-when he adopted the sobriquet "Mark Twain"-to his varied careers as a newspaperman, printer, and author. They follow him from the home he built in Hartford, Connecticut, to his peripatetic travels across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. We see Twain grieve over his favorite daughter's death, and we see him writing and noticing everything.
Twain believed that "The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven." This paradox fueled his hilarity and lay at the core of this irreverent yet profoundly serious author. With essays by Russell Banks, Jocelyn Chadwick, Ron Powers, and John Boyer, as well as an interview with actor and
frequent Twain portrayer Hal Holbrook, this book provides a full and rich portrayal of the first figure of American letters.
This is more than a lavishly illustrated companion book to the Mark Twain PBS series. National Book Critics Circle Award winner Geoffrey C. Ward, Dayton Duncan, and Ken Burns have produced a cogent, colorful portrait of the man who forged our national identity in the sentences he spun. Excellent though the brisk narrative may be, the book's greatest pleasures are the extensive Twain quotations; no one has topped his description of the Mississippi River, and he had a salty remark for every occasion (charged an outrageous fee for a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, he cracked, "Do you wonder now that Christ walked?"). Passages from his correspondence reveal a man of deep feeling; letters to his wife Livy movingly express enduring marital love, and the grief-stricken note following his beloved daughter Susy's sudden death is almost unbearable to read. Excerpts from less well known works like "The War Prayer" highlight Twain's scathing contempt for imperialism and hypocrisy alike. Several freestanding pieces by various admirers (including novelist Russell Banks and actor Hal Holbrook) supplement the authors' text; most notable among them is critic Jocelyn Chadwick's persuasive defense of Twain's frequent use of "The Six-Letter Word" (n----r) in Huckleberry Finn as a necessary and still-shocking device to confront Americans with the moral horror of racism. Gracefully synthesizing current scholarship, this warmhearted biography provides the perfect introduction to Mark Twain. --Wendy Smith
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