Mark Twain

De: Ron Chernow

Narrado por: Jason Culp

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, 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 young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.

In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.

Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

©2025 Ron Chernow (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Chernow’s voluminous biography presents Twain with all his complications and flaws—disastrous financial decisions, his evolving views on race—in this account both of the man and of a nation torn apart by war and stitched painfully back together, all of it brightened by Twain’s signature humor and wisdom.”—New York Times Book Review

“Before Chernow became the biographer of the American heroes hiding in our wallet—Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, and most famously Alexander Hamilton—he was a chronicler of Morgans, Warburgs and Rockefellers . . . Enlightening and entertaining . . . Here, after covering Twain’s greatness, he has boldly written a book about the limitations of our body and mind, the traps of our reputation, the death of those we love and the embarrassing yearning for youth.”—Bloomberg

“Chernow has produced a literary biography of the first rank . . . Chernow writes expressively but clearly . . . The heartiest compliment I can pay to Chernow is that at no point did I wish, as I first suspected I might, that I was reading a book by Twain instead of one about him.”—The American Conservative

Another great book

Yes the book is long. But I happen to like long books. He takes me back in time and there's so much research left behind about this man. Every life is a story. Every one of his books for me tells me their story. Since I read Rockefeller,I have read all his books and look forward to his next Book.