Mark Twain

Rating:
Summary: Complete and gripping
Review: As usual, Geoff Ward has breathed life into a historical figure and made him 3-dimensional. It is a gift. Ward not only gives you the facts of Twain's life but he uncovers much of what made the man who he was. The book is beautifully illustrated and a great read.

Rating:
Summary: A rich & rewarding biography
Review: Finally! A "coffee table" book that has top-quality photos and an excellent text.

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a companion to a two-part, four-hour documentary film, directed by Ken Burns, on the life and work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his "famously, irrepressibly rambunctious alter ego Mark Twain."

Ernest Hemingway once said that Twain is "the headwater of American fiction" and called THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since."

George Bernard Shaw referred to Twain as "America's Voltaire."

William Dean Howells described Twain as "incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."

Susy Clemens once wrote of her father: "He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He is as much of a Philosopher as anything, I think."

In this reviewer's considered judgment, Twain is the greatest literary genius America has produced, a thinker of remarkable depth and substance.

Twain's life was filled with many travels, adventures ... and tragedies. Born in 1835, when Halley's comet made its appearance, he lived for 75 years, until 1910, when Halley's comet returned. He survived, and suffered, the death of his beloved wife "Livy" (Olivia Louise Langdon), and three of their children: Langdon, who died in infancy; Susy, who died of spinal meningitis at age 24; and Jean, who died of a heart attack evidently brought on by an epileptic seizure.

"The secret source of humor itself," wrote Twain, "is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. ... [Our] race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

Laughter and sorrow: Twain was well acquainted with both. Known superficially to many admirers as merely a humorist or funny man, Twain was essentially, as he described himself, "a moralist in disguise" who preached sermons to "the damned human race."

Twain's literary corpus abounds with excoriating criticisms of racism, anti-Semitism, religious hypocrisy, governmental arrogance and imperialism, petty tyrants, and Philistine culture. His often deadpan humor bristles with barbed satire and withering sarcasm.

In addition to its narrative text, this volume includes five bonus essays: "Hannibal's Sam Clemens," by Ron Powers; "Hartford's Mark Twain," by John Boyer; "The Six-Letter Word," by Jocelyn Chadwick; "Out at the Edges," by Russell Banks; and an interview with Hal Holbrook, "Aren't We Funny Animals?"

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a rich and rewarding book.

Rating:
Summary: A rich & rewarding biography
Review: Finally! A "coffee table" book that has top-quality photos and an excellent text.

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a companion to a two-part, four-hour documentary film, directed by Ken Burns, on the life and work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his "famously, irrepressibly rambunctious alter ego Mark Twain."

Ernest Hemingway once said that Twain is "the headwater of American fiction" and called THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since."

George Bernard Shaw referred to Twain as "America's Voltaire."

William Dean Howells described Twain as "incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."

Susy Clemens once wrote of her father: "He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He is as much of a Philosopher as anything, I think."

In this reviewer's considered judgment, Twain is the greatest literary genius America has produced, a thinker of remarkable depth and substance.

Twain's life was filled with many travels, adventures ... and tragedies. Born in 1835, when Halley's comet made its appearance, he lived for 75 years, until 1910, when Halley's comet returned. He survived, and suffered, the death of his beloved wife "Livy" (Olivia Louise Langdon), and three of their children: Langdon, who died in infancy; Susy, who died of spinal meningitis at age 24; and Jean, who died of a heart attack evidently brought on by an epileptic seizure.

"The secret source of humor itself," wrote Twain, "is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. ... [Our] race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

Laughter and sorrow: Twain was well acquainted with both. Known superficially to many admirers as merely a humorist or funny man, Twain was essentially, as he described himself, "a moralist in disguise" who preached sermons to "the damned human race."

Twain's literary corpus abounds with excoriating criticisms of racism, anti-Semitism, religious hypocrisy, governmental arrogance and imperialism, petty tyrants, and Philistine culture. His often deadpan humor bristles with barbed satire and withering sarcasm.

In addition to its narrative text, this volume includes five bonus essays: "Hannibal's Sam Clemens," by Ron Powers; "Hartford's Mark Twain," by John Boyer; "The Six-Letter Word," by Jocelyn Chadwick; "Out at the Edges," by Russell Banks; and an interview with Hal Holbrook, "Aren't We Funny Animals?"

MARK TWAIN: AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY is a rich and rewarding book.

Rating:
Summary: The Bitter And The Sweet
Review: I wonder how many people could have led the life that Samuel Clemens did and kept their sanity. He went from riches to rags (even though it was his own fault...he spent money like it was going out of style and made some horrendous investments), which forced him, at the age of 60, into making a 10 month long physically and mentally draining around-the-world lecture tour. The tour enabled him to pay off his debts and regain his financial footing. Unfortunately, money was the least of his problems. The authors do not specifically state it, but it is clear (to me anyway) that Clemens suffered from manic-depression. At various times, and not coinciding with anything bad going on his life, he considered suicide. He had lifelong moodswings, as well as a volatile temper. (His daughters were afraid to be alone with him, as his behavior was so unpredictable. They made sure to visit him as a group.) The authors recount one incident where Clemens, angry over a missing button, opened an upstairs window and tossed all of his shirts out into the street. Saddest of all, Clemens outlived almost all of his loved ones. His beloved wife, Livy, who was almost 10 years younger than him, predeceased him, as did 3 of his 4 children. His one surviving child, his daughter Clara, suffered a nervous breakdown when Clemens was almost 70. A heavy load to bear, indeed, but somehow Clemens bore it and carried on. One thing that helped was his worldwide fame. Clemens was hungry for fame, even as a young man. He became well-known early in life, and remained famous and popular right up until he died. (He was a bit of a "ham." He would purposely time his walks for when people were emerging from church, and would then saunter past in his trademark- pun intended- white suits.) This book is an absolutely perfect blend of narrative by the authors, liberal excerpts from Clemens's many writings, "guest essays," and page after page of terrific period photographs. (The research done for the photographs, alone, must have been backbreaking.) The narrative and essays made this a good book. The addition of the excerpts and the photos turned it into a great book. The excerpts are not just from Clemens's well-known works, either. He was once asked to address an organization which consisted of descendants of the Puritans. The written text is reproduced in the book. Twain skewered the original Puritans for killing Native Americans and for kicking everyone who wasn't a Puritan out of Massachusetts, even though, as Clemens makes sure to emphasize, they left England under the banner of religious freedom. (You have to think that when the organization invited Clemens to speak, this wasn't quite what they had in mind.) One of the many interesting items included in the book is a list of the famous sayings "Mark Twain" supposedly uttered....but didn't. (He was so famous that it was assumed that anything clever originated with him.) Unfortunately, one of my all-time favorites was included in this list: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." On the bright side, he DID say "The rumor of my death has been greatly exaggerated." One caution: the excerpts will make you want to read or re-read all of Twain. I've already ordered a copy of "The Innocents Abroad" as somehow, in my youth, I missed that one. Hats off to Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, and Ken Burns for this wonderful book!

Rating:
Summary: A typical Ken Burns Production
Review: I've never been a big fan of Mark Twain, nor Ken Burns. Twain's work becomes tiresome and the same holds true for Burn's productions. While the basic idea of using period photographs and quoting actual documents is a good one, having actors and comedians give their views adds nothing to the picture. True, Hal Holbrook "potrayed" Twain on stage, but his interview was rambling and incoherant. And why was Dick Gregory interviewed ?
Really, the PBS special could have been better. The book is a "must have for Twain fans", but otherwise I would ignore it.
I ended up disliking Twain more after reading the book and seeing the series.

Rating:
Summary: Defining the American Fiction Writer
Review: If you only read one biography in the next year, I suggest that you make it this one.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) was “torn between fame and family, between humor and bitterness, bottomless hunger for success and haunting fears of failure.”

His own writing makes this volume sparkle. “I am only human -- although I regret it.” “Aw well, I am a great and sublime fool.” “The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” His ability to capture the American vernacular on paper has never been equaled.

Much of his best-known writing was based on Hannibal, Missouri where he lived from age 4 to 17, and visited only 5 times thereafter. The benefit of an illustrated biography for Mark Twain is that you can see the people and places he was describing, which adds to your enjoyment of those works and to a greater understanding of his craft. Tom Blankenship was a model for Huck Finn and Laura Hawkes inspired Becky Thatcher. Constantly on the move, Twain wrote about the places he visited to earn his living and you will learn a great deal from seeing contemporary photographs and illustrations of these sights from the western United States and Hawaii through to Europe and the Middle East. He also did a world-wide lecture tour in 1895 that is captured here.

“Livy” (Olivia Langdon) was the great love of his life, and you will be enchanted and touched by their letters. You will also enjoy learning about her role as editor (helping him avoid expressions that would offend almost everyone) and as muse (he wanted her to be proud of him).

You will come away with many new impressions of Mark Twain. Perhaps no one in the 19th century changed and expanded his views as much as Twain did. Born in slave-holding Missouri, he quickly developed an appreciation for the fine qualities of the slaves he knew and wrote about them with sympathy as fellow human beings (Huck Finn and Pudd’n Head Wilson). He mastered three different and difficult careers (river pilot on the Mississippi, novelist, and lecturer). Married into a teetotaling, Abolitionist family, he learned to operate in genteel, Eastern social circles (with lots of clues from his adoring wife). Inspired by the potential of technology, he bankrupted himself investing in an improved way to set type that never became commercially feasible. Later in life, he was toasted by great writers and royalty throughout Europe, lived in enormous luxury, and found himself scrambling to earn a living to pay the mounting debts of his business failures. Perhaps no greater irony can come than having been the publisher for Grant’s memoirs.

His own life was filled with enormous happiness and sadness. His wife and all but one of his children died before him. Ill health dogged his wife and children.

I was fascinated to learn that Halley’s comet was blazing in the evening skies both when he was born and when he died. That seems like an appropriate symbol for this most unique man who characterized himself as follows, “I am the American.”

The book contains many excerpts from his writing, letters, newspaper texts of his lectures, and letters to him (especially from his wife). The narrative in the book is often watery by comparison. The book does feature a number of essays that I found enjoyable. One was Ms. Jocelyn Chadwick’s thoughts on “The Six-Letter Word” that begins with “n” and is used by some to derogate African-Americans. She points out that although Twain often used the word in his writing, he was “not sanctioning the use of the slur.” To the opposite, he used the word to show the moral and social backwardness of those who did, such as Huck’s father in Huckleberry Finn. Hal Holbrook describes his one-man show, and I was surprised to learn that “Mark Twain Tonight” is quite different from the lectures that Mark Twain actually gave. Those were usually readings, rather than one-liners, and were frequently rewritten since newspapers often reported on what had been said in these lectures. He also wore a dark suit, and did not smoke on stage.

I came away from this book with a strong desire to read more of Mark Twain’s writing, and to see the PBS series for which this book is a companion. I am sure you will, too!

Turn your sadness and setbacks into fertile soil for imagination and humor! Listen to all those around you, and share their lessons with the world!

Rating:
Summary: Defining the American Fiction Writer
Review: If you only read one biography in the next year, I suggest that you make it this one.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) was “torn between fame and family, between humor and bitterness, bottomless hunger for success and haunting fears of failure.”

His own writing makes this volume sparkle. “I am only human -- although I regret it.” “Aw well, I am a great and sublime fool.” “The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” His ability to capture the American vernacular on paper has never been equaled.

Much of his best-known writing was based on Hannibal, Missouri where he lived from age 4 to 17, and visited only 5 times thereafter. The benefit of an illustrated biography for Mark Twain is that you can see the people and places he was describing, which adds to your enjoyment of those works and to a greater understanding of his craft. Tom Blankenship was a model for Huck Finn and Laura Hawkes inspired Becky Thatcher. Constantly on the move, Twain wrote about the places he visited to earn his living and you will learn a great deal from seeing contemporary photographs and illustrations of these sights from the western United States and Hawaii through to Europe and the Middle East. He also did a world-wide lecture tour in 1895 that is captured here.

“Livy” (Olivia Langdon) was the great love of his life, and you will be enchanted and touched by their letters. You will also enjoy learning about her role as editor (helping him avoid expressions that would offend almost everyone) and as muse (he wanted her to be proud of him).

You will come away with many new impressions of Mark Twain. Perhaps no one in the 19th century changed and expanded his views as much as Twain did. Born in slave-holding Missouri, he quickly developed an appreciation for the fine qualities of the slaves he knew and wrote about them with sympathy as fellow human beings (Huck Finn and Pudd’n Head Wilson). He mastered three different and difficult careers (river pilot on the Mississippi, novelist, and lecturer). Married into a teetotaling, Abolitionist family, he learned to operate in genteel, Eastern social circles (with lots of clues from his adoring wife). Inspired by the potential of technology, he bankrupted himself investing in an improved way to set type that never became commercially feasible. Later in life, he was toasted by great writers and royalty throughout Europe, lived in enormous luxury, and found himself scrambling to earn a living to pay the mounting debts of his business failures. Perhaps no greater irony can come than having been the publisher for Grant’s memoirs.

His own life was filled with enormous happiness and sadness. His wife and all but one of his children died before him. Ill health dogged his wife and children.

I was fascinated to learn that Halley’s comet was blazing in the evening skies both when he was born and when he died. That seems like an appropriate symbol for this most unique man who characterized himself as follows, “I am the American.”

The book contains many excerpts from his writing, letters, newspaper texts of his lectures, and letters to him (especially from his wife). The narrative in the book is often watery by comparison. The book does feature a number of essays that I found enjoyable. One was Ms. Jocelyn Chadwick’s thoughts on “The Six-Letter Word” that begins with “n” and is used by some to derogate African-Americans. She points out that although Twain often used the word in his writing, he was “not sanctioning the use of the slur.” To the opposite, he used the word to show the moral and social backwardness of those who did, such as Huck’s father in Huckleberry Finn. Hal Holbrook describes his one-man show, and I was surprised to learn that “Mark Twain Tonight” is quite different from the lectures that Mark Twain actually gave. Those were usually readings, rather than one-liners, and were frequently rewritten since newspapers often reported on what had been said in these lectures. He also wore a dark suit, and did not smoke on stage.

I came away from this book with a strong desire to read more of Mark Twain’s writing, and to see the PBS series for which this book is a companion. I am sure you will, too!

Turn your sadness and setbacks into fertile soil for imagination and humor! Listen to all those around you, and share their lessons with the world!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book For Twain Fans
Review: Like the comet that heralded his arrival and, 74 years later, signaled his passing, Mark Twain was a man in nearly constant motion. Either his pen was racing across the page, or he was racing across the world, gathering the raw material of experience for his stories, es­says, letters, novels, invest­ments and inventions. He was a writing machine, turning out so much copy that we haven't yet found the bottom to this gold mine.

Part of Twain's greatness is that he was a man of enormous talent and en­ergy who was in the right places at the right times. It was the perfect combination that made him a uniquely American artist. Talent without energy would not have given him the ability to write so much. Ener­gy without talent would not have made him, as Russel Banks' words, a wise guy who was wise. American letters is full of humorists who are now footnotes. In Twain's time, there is P.V. Nasby, and Josh Billings, Bret Harte and Arte­mus Ward. What makes Twain so different?

First, Twain saw himself as more than a humorist. He was a moralist. He was perfect­ly capable of writing funny without a point, whether it be about a trick played with a jumping frog, or the stories about Tom Sawyer. But he also used Huck Finn to rage against slavery. He berated Commo­dore Vanderbilt for not using his millions to help the poor (he later hob­nobbed with the rich, one of those contradictions that en­riches his character). Later in life, embittered by the death of his children, he abandoned hu­mor to rail against imperial­ism, lynching and even God.

Written by Burns' collabora­tors Dayton Duncan and Geof­frey C. Ward, "Mark Twain" is crammed full of stories that show us the man behind the penname. Twain boiled with mirth, resentment, anger and passion, both on and off the page. When a button was found missing from one of his freshly-laundered shirts, he cursed and threw the whole stack out of the window of his home. On the lecture circuit, he gloried in leaving his audiences helpless with laughter.

But his sorrow was equally powerful. When he lost the love of his life, his wife, Livy, he wrote, "There is no God and no universe; . . . there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And . . . I am that thought."

But as Twain helped define the nation with his writings, the nation also defined him. He planted him­self deep into the rich soil of the South, the West and the East, and drew upon all those sources for his work. He grew up in Hannibal, Mis­souri, on the stories told by whites and blacks. His became a riverboat pilot, intimately aware of the power and beauty of the Mississippi River. He avoided fighting in the Civil War - for which he was never chastised, partly because he was so willing to make fun of himself over it - and worked as a newspaperman and failed silver miner in Nevada and San Francisco. Seeking success as a writer, he went East where the publishers were, and settled in Hartford, Conn. As his fame grew and he traveled world­wide, he brought home more tales to tell, but they all had a source in common: humanity in all its rich glories and taw­dry foibles.

"Mark Twain" briskly charts Twain's incredible life, and in­cludes essays by writers like Banks and Jocelyn Chadwick and an interview with Twain impersonator Hal Holbrook that are entertaining and illu­minating. Interwoven in the text are Twain's own words, so many that he should have re­ceived co-author credit.

But the book's crowning glory are in its photo­graphs, many of them never published. This is the strongest rea­son any Twain fan should look at the book. It's an incredible selection. Here he is at the breakfast table during his round-the-world lecture tour he took at age 60, looking like he just got out of bed (which he did). There, he's on the stage, "lending tone" to a lecture by Booker T. Washington.

And one of the saddest ap­proaches art. It was taken in 1900, and after several deaths (a son in infancy, one daughter four years before), and the family is down to his daughters Jean, Clara and his wife, Livy. Jean was away, so the picture only shows Twain, Livy and Clara. They're there, but they're not part of the picture; they look in different directions as if they can't bear to be there. He's looking at the camera, in soft focus, unable to stand still for a moment. As if their grief had a physical presence, the glass photo is cracked. It is a portrait of a family slowly colliding with tragedy.

By the end of his life, Twain had had enough. He was ready to go out with the return of Ha­ley's Comet in 1910. At his fu­neral, his unique stature in lit­erature was recognized by his good friend, Joe Twitchell, who called him, "the Lincoln of our literature."

"I am not an American, I am the American," Twain said, and "Mark Twain" shows how he became our most American writer.

Rating:
Summary: An informative survey of Twain's life
Review: Mark Twain: An Illustrated Biography is an informative survey of Twain's life which gathers material from a variety of published and unpublished sources, from his novels and lectures to his letters and photos. Students and fans of Twain thus receive much more illustration than in competing titles, in the form of vintage photos and color ads and drawings, along with a lively biographical sketch surveying Twain's life and times. Highly recommended; much more accessible than most.

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended: confusing.
Review: The book is confusing. What is the reader supposed to believe? Clemens was a genius, or, Clemens was an imbecile? "Mark Twain an Illustrated Biography" starts with a preface that says: Sam Clemens was a "genius." Next comes the prologue, which states "his own overreaching drove him and his family into exile oversaes."---That statement could not be farther from the truth. A book that starts by rejoicing in Twain's genius and, then proceeds completely to ignore Twain's genius and portray an imbecile is confusing.To understand the confusion and, put the narrative on page 177 in context, review this sentence: "When she died, she was only twenty-four years old." What is the purpose of the word "only" in that sentence? Putting "only" in the sentence confuses facts and, by that confusion makes a biased sentence. Susy was twenty-four years old: An age by anybody's standards where she is old enough to be responsible for her own health. By combining that sentence with "only" and the pictures of a young Susy on pages 87, 94, 99, 103, 105, 119, 132, 146, 150, the book alleges that Susy was very young when she died, which is not true.It was the family publishing business alone that went bankrupt, not Clemens, a fact previously canvassed on page 157 but by page 177 forgotten; The financial recession of 1893, which was responsible for making the tour necessary and separating the family, was not Clemens fault and he would have to be an absolute fool rather than a genius to think otherwise, a fact previously canvassed on pages 155 & 156 but by page 177 forgotten; Clemens knew that he was in no way whatsoever responsible for the death of Susy; When Susy died, she was not the first child that Sam and Livy had buried; What Sam includes in his letter on page 177 are emotions experienced after losing their first child a son, not emotions consistent with losing their second child Susy. Canvassed initially, the book describes how Sam becomes inured to death by experiencing so many deaths in his life. Then on page 177 it is as if death is a brand-new idea, which Sam, has no familiarity with at all? It cannot be both ways, either he was inured or he was not.Sam's writing was so powerful that he easily conveyed feelings that he did not feel; Sam's writing conveys feelings that he does not feel to relieve Livy's feelings of responsibility and grief: Clemens is magnanimously taking responsibility for things that he knows he is not responsible for to soothe his ailing wife (Sam wrote a similar letter after the death of his brother Henry, see page 20, only an idiot would believe himself responsible for too much steam when he was not even on the boat with Henry.); Livy had been diagnosed with heart problems, which forced the family move to Europe in 1891, a fact previously canvassed on page 145 where it incorrectly states "They [doctors] recommended rest and treatment for Livy in Europe," the facts being rather that Livy was "ordered" to Europe by her doctors, but by page 177 the facts after being distorted are forgotten and without thorough study or instruction, the facts are presented with a vagueness that makes' them impossible to understand.Unequivocally, Clemens in 1906 stated for his autobiography, [Edited by Charles Neider, page 428], Livy was "ordered" to Europe by her doctors. If Clemens knew, Livy was ordered to Europe in 1906, it's only fair to assume he knew Livy was "ordered" to Europe when he wrote that magnanimous letter on page 177 taking responsibility for things that he knew he was not responsible for in 1896. And just as fairly, without any assumption, we may know that Clemens knew he did not cause the financial recession of 1893. Sam's stay in Europe, which he loathed and called exile, was never exile at all, but concession to his love for his wife, Livy, and the requirements mandated by her heart trouble.In all honesty, Clemens was being magnanimous when he wrote "Reproaching myself for laying the foundation of all our troubles. . . . Reproaching myself for a million things whereby I have brought misfortune and sorrow to this family."---found on page 177. Clemens was being far from honest, unless he was responsible for the financial recession of 1893, responsible for Livy's heart problems that forced the families move to Europe in 1891, and responsible for Susy's health when Susy was of an age to be responsible for her own health and had been living on her own separated by half-a-world from Sam and Livy for most of a year.For an entertaining book that does not confuse these important issues I recommend: MEET MARK TWAIN, published by Xlibris.