Mark Twain

Bestseller Chernow again proves himself among his generation’s finest biographers with this magisterial account of the life of Mark Twain... Chernow’s razor-sharp portrait offers nuanced explorations of Twain’s many contradictions... Amply justifying the considerable page count, this stands as the new definitive biography of the revered author

Publishers' Weekly

Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Chernow, best known for his authoritative works on such political figures as Hamilton, Washington, and Grant, here examines the life of one of our most celebrated literary figures with equally remarkable results ... Chernow is an exceptional portraitist, adding depth and shadow to bring his subject fully to life. The impeccable research blends seamlessly into a narrative that examines Twain in all his guises: devoted family man, writer, publisher, entrepreneur, and inventor. Like his subject, Chernow has a keen ear for the perfect quote, insult, and witty rejoinder. This monumental achievement will stand as the definitive life of Mark Twain

Bill Kelly, Booklist

Charming, sympathetic, yet judicious ... this is a model biography, one of the finest of recent years. Chernow's gift for fluency, rivalling Twain's, unstrenuously carries you along, parading before us the many lives of Mark Twain.

Pratinav Anil, The Times

...an admirably animated, readable account of one of the modern world’s first celebrities. Somewhere deep inside it, almost hidden, glows the energy and humour of Twain’s very American prose."

John Mullan, Guardian

The complex life of Mark Twain is told expertly in Pulitzer winner Ron Chernow's comprehensive biography ... Chernow offers a balanced, insightful view of the whole Twain package.

Mark Chilton, Independent

Chernow's Mark Twain flows like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain’s own exuberance.

Boston Globe

[An] exceptional biography that devours the life’s work of the perfect American writer and lays bare the unfortunate reality of an imperfect American life ... an exquisitely written, deeply researched volume about an intriguing, complex, contradictory, intelligent, and often exaggerated literary stylist

Michael Taube, Washington Examiner

Mark Twain is a masterful exploration of the magnificent highs and unutterable lows of an American literary genius. Twain himself once said that "Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written." But this one feels like the truth of one man’s star-crossed life

Mary Ann Gwinn, Los Angeles Times

Twain presents a tantalizing challenge for literary biography: to explain how someone able to spot and depict frailties of conscience, character, and judgment in others could be so powerless to correct them in himself ... Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain will shock anyone who knows Twain only through his writing

Graeme Wood, Atlantic

Chernow writes with such ease and clarity that even long sections on, say, Twain’s business ventures prove horribly fascinating ... [his] book is deeply absorbing throughout and likely to succeed the excellent earlier lives by Justin Kaplan and Ron Powers as the standard biography

Michael Dirda

In his biography of the famed satirist, Ron Chernow tracks, with patience and care, Twain’s journey over nearly eight tumultuous decades. Mr. Chernow’s tale is enlivened by blazing quotes from Twain’s prodigious interviews, diaries and letters

Jay Parini, Wall Street Journal