This is an insightful book about the complicated and contradictory figure, the jovial figure full of melancholy, the man of mirth who could be mean. Mark Twain, as the crude alter ego of Mark Twain, said things the Missouri native never would have vocalized. Powers includes perspectives on historical events of the era that make the book more interesting.
Death surrounded Twain much of his life, including his favorite sibling, younger brother Henry killed in a steamboat explosion in early adulthood. Twain's infant son, two daughters, and his wife all preceded him in death. Twain felt guilty about all the deaths to some extent.
Twain failed at multiple inventive enterprises, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. A failure as a miner, Twain found his true vocation, writing, initially by writing for newspapers. His experiences as a steamboat captain as well as characters he knew in childhood and youth in Missouri of course cemented his reputation as a literary genius. As no one before him, Twin demonstrated that humor and seriousness could compatibly tell a story. To make money, Twain often resorted to the lecture circuit, gaining a following throughout Europe and elsewhere. The irreverent humorist was the first to be a cultural phenomena and to receive fan mail. he remained the most well-know U.S. celebrity at the time of his death.
The only major flaw of the lengthy book is that it reads like a diary in parts; diaries aren't always all that interesting.

The definitive biography of Samuel Clemens. A legend in his own time, there was and continues to this day more incorrect things known about him than correct. Mr Powers carefully details his entire life, separating fact from fiction in an intriguing and informative biography. Highly recommended!

Mark Twain has long been my favorite American literary personality, and this excellent, often witty and wry, biography delineates why. We learn in this biography about Clemens’ boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri; his introduction to the written word in a printing shop, and his lifelong obsession w/ typesetting; his life on the Mississippi River, both as a boy and as a riverboat pilot; his aborted participation in a “secesh” unit that led to him “lighting out for the territory”—Nevada; where he became a typesetter for a Virginia City newspaper, a miner, a newspaper writer, a lecturer, and finally, the inventor of “Mark Twain,” the first American rock star.

We also see him pissing off nearly everyone he ever meets, even close friends and family, at one time or another, w/ his intolerance for fools and hypocrites, and his pathetic need for eastern “approval,” which leads to his ruinous investments in inventions that never pan out and his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy, New York businessman. However, he and Livy lead a happy life and have four children, only one of which dies in childhood.

The author devotes entire chapters to certain books, mostly the early, career-making ones. I esp enjoyed the chapter about “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which is my favorite Twain book.

Many people don’t realize that Twain’s turn to dark themes in his writing in the last quarter of his life were actually inside him all along. He long doubted God’s existence, but upon the death of his eldest daughter in 1896, while the rest of the family was in Europe, he finally started giving vent to the darkness. The death of his wife fully 10 years before he died sent him over the edge in his writing. The death of his youngest daughter in her bathtub after an epileptic seizure in 1909 completed his own denouement. He developed heart problems and died five months after her.

I’m from Mizzou so feel a kinship w/ Twain b/c I could recognize his rural boyhood. I could also relate to his struggle w/ racism, and really appreciate Huck’s dawning understanding of Jim as a man, not just a “nigger.” I also understand his ambivalence and avoidance of the Civil War, as that is still a loaded subject in Mizzou. And I definitely understand Twain’s giving in to despair after the loss of his daughters and his wife. I, too, have lost a daughter after she had an epileptic seizure.

This biography of Mark Twain brought him to life, insecurities, faults, and all. Thank you for the gift, Mr. Powers. I wish I could give you more than five stars. Sorry, not sorry, for the long review.

I love this guy!!

An excellent biography of the truly incredible life of the great American author.

A surprisingly interesting book. Of course, Mark Twain is well known and this is a book about him. But I didn’t realize just how breakthrough and cutting edge he was at the time. The global Gilded Age, the end of Slavery, and the full flood of the Age of Imperialism were all backdrops for his life and writings. Powers does an impressive job keeping it interesting but not exhausting as it must have been for Clemens himself.

I am not a Mark Twain fan. I didn't enjoy reading any of his work while I was in school. But, I really enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot about Twain that I didn't know (that I learned via cultural osmosis) and may go back and reexplore some of his works now that I'm a bit older (and not required to read it). One thing I would have liked to have seen was a slightly less abrupt ending - which was basically, "Mark Twain died. The end".

Twain fans will love this concise biography filled with plenty of details of this amazing writer.

Power's exhaustive Twain biography well researched and well cited. Much of the material was gleaned and quoted from correspondence among Clemons, his friends, and family members. The first half of the book is fast moving and entertaining, especially his steam boat days and early newspaperman feuds in Carson City, Nevada. Somewhere around two-thirds of the way through the book, the pace becomes tedious and oppressive. Perhaps this is not the fault of Powers, as the time period covered in this portion of the book runs parallel to Clemons depressingly unending business misadventures followed by the necessary scrapping and tramping to stave off bankruptcy. This was a period of time in which Twain's writing quality mostly suffered. I enjoyed the last few chapters, particularly with respect to Twain's anti-imperialist writings which were unpublished at the time, such as "The War Prayer." I felt that the book would have benefited from quotes and excerpts from Twain's anti-imperialist writings, as well in some other sections of the book where less well-known articles or books were mentioned.

I wonder if Sam Clemens ever contemplated how the Mississippi River he so loved served as a metaphor for his own life: both beautiful and treacherous, deep and shallow, its currents ever winding and changing routes around islands, embankments, snags, sandbars, and submerged wrecks, offering at different times blissful happiness or shattering sorrow. So many places to dock along the way offered temporary diversions, then back to navigating the dominating stream of life that carried pleasure craft, cargo rafts, or Huckleberry Finns and Jims, in high tides or lows. There were ever the vagaries of encounter and the boatman’s reaction to them. There were the intruding “outsiders” (in the case of the river that would be the hydro-engineers who intended to “straighten” it; for Mark Twain I guess they would be the critical reviewers of his writings). Or then again, maybe even the great Mississippi River could not measure up to the complexity of the life of Samuel Clemens.

This is an exquisite biography—long and deep. To the extent it may be possible to read the man, this summation must surely do it. Not that it is yet easy. Did Sam Clemens even understand himself? He surely tried very hard (I think......). Does his life stand as metaphor for what we all might wish to be? Well surely not to experience so many sorrows. But to never stop striving to do what we believe right. No wonder he spent so much contemplation about fates—and about Heaven and Hell and all the characters associated with either or both.

Yes, it took me a while to finish this story. But it will take a while longer to digest it. Meanwhile, I must re-read Huckleberry Finn.

For someone like me who has never studied the life of Mark Twain, nor 19th century history, at least not my attempts to not learn history in high school, this tome is quite an education. Thoroughly covers Mark Twain's life, including commentary on past writings by other authors about him. Why is it that most creative geniuses seem to be dysfunctional in everyday life? Maybe genius is part of a mental and/or emotional pathology. Anyway, not having read very many biographies, I can't say whether this one is exceptional or not, but it held my interest. The book provides plenty of information along with insight about its primary subject as well as how his life affected and was affected by the times. Well written and highly recommended.

Extremely detailed, more than 600 page book, but has Twain's entire life chronicled. Read it as part of a book club, and glad I did, but would not have chosen it otherwise.