From Publishers Weekly
Here for the first time is an exuberant yet scholarly reconstruction of Twain's youth, from birth in 1835 to marriage in 1870, a marvelous well of experience into which he dipped for so much of his later writing. We see Samuel Langhorne Clemens grow from the sickly child of a grim-faced attorney and a beautiful, witty mother into a sturdy youth with a puckish sense of humor (not always amused when the joke was on him) and an irrepressible appetite for life that impelled him from one adventurous enterprise to another. After some years as a roving teenage printer who delighted in sending squibs to the newspapers, he became a Mississippi riverboat captain, then a Confederate soldier, would-be Nevada silver miner, California journalist, widely traveled newspaper correspondent, popular lecturer and bestselling author. Sanborn ( Robert E. Lee ) relies heavily on Twain's largely untapped personal letters to make us feel close to the very texture of his personality in its darker as well as its lighter aspects.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Beginning in 1835 with Samuel Clemens's birth and ending 39 years later after the marriage of the celebrated author, Mark Twain, this readable and vivid biography chronicles in great detail the inimitable writer's boyhood and youthful professions of typesetter, riverboat pilot, miner, and newspaper correspondent. Sanborn relies heavily on archival materials, quoting at length from the letters (published in their entirety as Mark Twain's Letters , Vol. 1: 1853-1866 , LJ 4/15/87, and Vol. 2: 1867-1868 ). Her research and writing are generally careful (she cites her sources in endnotes), although the chronology skips around in a confusing manner at times. Recommended for students of American literature and Mark Twain enthusiasts.
-Janice Braun, Yale Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Janice Braun, Yale Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
