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Mark Twain /

Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America's first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the you...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chernow, Ron (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Penguin Press, [2025].
Subjects:
Twain, Mark, > 1835-1910.
Authors, American > 19th century > Biography.
Humorists, American > 19th century > Biography.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures.
HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical.
Table of Contents:
  • Prelude : The pilot house
  • Part one: Afloat. Loveless marriage
  • A wild and mischievous boy
  • Printer's devil
  • "Darling existence"
  • "A ragged and dirty bunch"
  • "The most lovable scamp"
  • "Heaven on the half shell"
  • "Land of indolence and dreams"
  • "Grave of a blood relation"
  • A branch of hell
  • "My honored 'sister'"
  • Wedding present
  • Part two: Floodtide. Church of the holy speculators
  • Mississippi steamboat and a cuckoo clock
  • Chartering a comet to Mars
  • "Invertebrate without a country"
  • Toast to the babies
  • "Inspired bugger of a machine"
  • "Hallelujah Jennings"
  • Twins of genius
  • "A sound heart & a deformed conscience"
  • Pure mugwump
  • Reparation due to every Black man
  • "No pockets in the armor"
  • "The deriding of shams"
  • Death and delusion
  • "One of the Vanderbilt gang"
  • Part three: Rapids. "Paradise of the rheumatics"
  • "A lady above reproach"
  • "Boss machine of the world"
  • "Too much of a human being"
  • "Paris the damnable"
  • "'Colossal' is a tame word for him"
  • "Clown of the sea"
  • "Circumnavigation of this great globe"
  • "The only sad voyage"
  • "A book written in blood & tears"
  • "Letters to Satan"
  • "Stirring times in Austria"
  • "The European Edison"
  • Dream self
  • "A hundred capering clowns"
  • "The bastard human race"
  • Part four: Whirlpool.
  • "The ancient mariner"
  • The anti-doughnut party
  • "The United States of lyncherdom"
  • "Magnificent panorama of the Mississippi"
  • "Spirit of a steam engine"
  • Divine healing
  • The dread cavalcade of death
  • "The war prayer"
  • "An artist in morals and ink"
  • "The swindle of life"
  • Pier 70
  • Angelfish
  • A fan and a halo
  • Wuthering Heights
  • Part five: Shipwreck. Man in the white clothes
  • "A real American college boy"
  • "All the wonders that are occurring"
  • A holiday from life's woes
  • Innocence at home
  • "Mark Twain's daughter"
  • The death of Tammany
  • "An insane idea"
  • Grandpa Twain
  • Letters from the Earth
  • "An old bird of paradise"
  • Halley's comet.