Customer Reviews

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens

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It is so detailed in relating every little bit of Twain's life to some
character or incident in his writings that one cannot "get on" with the
narrative. Unless you recall every detail of Twain's writings, these
references mean little and the whole is like working your way through a
long recipe.

Exellent job of research, but boring to the point that I could not get into this without skipping around. Some wonderful passages but overall, I much preferred Lighting Out for the Territory....

I think the title of my review is the review .Except for the pictures most of it is old stuff but as it is always a pleasure reading about Mr. Clemens the subject saves the book

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the pen name of Samuel L. Clemens born in frontier Florida, Missouri smack dab in the middle of the nineteenth century. What a life he led! Printer working for brother Orion and others; steamboat pilot who studied under the great Horace Bixby Confederate soldier for two inglorious weeks with the Marion Rifles; gold prospecter and newspaper man as far west as Nevada and San Francisco he was a renaissance man who disdained European traditions. Twain was also a famous lecturer, humorist and author of great American literature. His best book is Huckleberry Finn (1885). Other novels include:
Tom Sawyer; The Prince and the Pauper; Joan of Arc; Puddenhead Wilson; The American Claimant; The Gilded Age; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and The Mysterious Stranger. Among his prolific travel narratives are The Innocents Abroad; A Tramp Abroad; Following the Equator; Life on the Mississippi and Roughing It. Twain is America's greatest literary humorist though he had a deeply dark side. Twain's best friend was, ironically, the Rev Joe Twitchell.
Twain was rarely happy living in one place. He lived much of his life in Connecticut and New York but also spent long periods abroad in England, Italy and Germany.He was a great artist who wanted to make money though his business ventures usually failed. (these included his investment in the Paige typesetter and various failed publishing company ventures. Twain was instrumental in persuading General U.S. Grant to write his memoirs to save his family from poverty. Twain loved America but hated imperialism. He was not free of faults but found solace in laughter and the witty rejoinder to the indifferent universe.
Twain will live for his evocation of the golden idyll of boyhood though he takes on the racial problems of America especially in Huckleberry Finn. Twain explores the odyssey of life in his image of a journey through the heart of America as Huck and the runaway slave Jim travel to the heart of the darkness of the stain of chattel slavery and the you of freedom. Twain was as William Dean Howells, his fellow author and good friend put it: "the Lincoln of our Literature."
Mark Twain enjoyed a long and happy married life with the wealthy Livy. Langdon, his only son, died in infancy. His eldest and favorite daughter Susy and youngest daughter Jean predeceased him. Their deaths and that of his beloved Livy in 1904 crushed his ebullient spirit turning him into a skeptic lashing out at the damned human race. Only daughter Clara outlived her father; she married a symphony conductor dying in the 1930s.
All of these facts are well known in many Twain biographies. What makes Loving, a professor of literature at Texas A & M University, worth reading is:
a. His short chapters focusing on a particular time in the life of Twain. This is an excellent way for teachers to prepare for a course on Mark Twain, American humor or nineteenth century literature. The short chapters are easy to digest and chock full of information on the author, his times and his familial relatonships.
b. Loving is an expert on Twain and provides a long bibliography of books consulted.
c. His biography is well illustrated with period photos and is written in a servicable English.
As one who has been reading books by Twain or about him for many years I highly recommend this fine biography to the general reader.

This book seems to miss some key points about Twain's life. I would have to suggest his own autobiography OR "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography" because both of those books can be found cheaper and I found them to be better representations of his life if you are interested in Mark Twain.