A New Biography Of The Most Famous American Of His Time: Mark Twain

Michael Dirda reviews Roy Morris Jr.'s book, American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad.

There are probably more studies and biographies of Mark Twain — the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) — than of any other figure in American literature. And why not?

After all, Twain produced at least three or four titles that rank high on almost everyone’s list of favorite books. “Huckleberry Finn” is a leading contender in the The Great American Novel sweepstakes. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” as biographer Roy Morris Jr. observes, “seems to take place in perpetual summer” and conveys an “ineffable magic.” Twain’s own favorites, if no one else’s, were “The Prince and the Pauper” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” Instead of those “English” novels, I would argue for “Life on the Mississippi.”

However, Mark Twain was more than just an author. The barefoot boy from hardscrabble Hannibal, Mo., rose to become a global celebrity, the most famous American of his time, rivaled only by Teddy Roosevelt (whom he once derided as the “Tom Sawyer of the political world”). His quips and yarn-filled performances in “Mark Twain at Home” took him to lyceums, opera halls and auditoriums around the world. In fact, as “American Vandal” reminds us, he spent more than a dozen years of his adult life outside the United States.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/a-new-biography-of-the-most-famous-american-of-his-time-mark-twain/2015/03/18/f5b9a48e-cbf7-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html