This man's life could be a movie. Excellent read. His daughters lives would make movies as well, I think. But how many firsts he had in his life that America later then continued to do would be worth counting up just from implication by this book.

I've got to read more Mark Twain now. "Innocents Abroad" for how the world sees Americans and "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's court" for Sci-Fi and prophecy of the future due to invention for sure.

Fantastically fascinating insight of the life of (Mark Twain) Samuel Clemons. But really ? Absquatulation used 5 times on less that 2 pages ?? I almost Absquatulated and put the book down, but I plodded on....
Quite a long battle with words. But interesting read if I can or will ever get through it....

"A dog is der Hund the dog; a women is die Frau the wom[an]; a horse is das Pferd, the horse; now you put that dog in the Genitive case, & is he the same dog he was before? No sir; he is das Hundes; put him in the Dative case & what is he? Why, he is dem Hund. Now you snatch him into the accusative case & how is it with him? Why he is den Hunden? ... Read moreBut suppose he happens to be twins & you have to pluralize him – what then? Why sir they’ll swap that twin dog around thro’ the four cases till he’ll think he’s an entire International Dog Show all in his own person. I don’t like dogs, but I wouldn’t treat a dog like that. I wouldn’t even treat a borrowed dog that way.”

A lively, well informed study with choice details from Twain's very rich life. Good attention to the historical context.