Who Is Mark Twain? - Softcover

Twain, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061735019 ISBN 13: 9780061735011

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2010

Synopsis

"You had better shove this in the stove," Mark Twain said at the top of an 1865 letter to his brother, "for I don't want any absurd ‘literary remains' and ‘unpublished letters of Mark Twain' published after I am planted." He was joking, of course. But when Mark Twain died in 1910, he left behind the largest collection of personal papers created by any nineteenth-century American author. Who Is Mark Twain? presents twenty-six wickedly funny, disarmingly relevant pieces by the American master—a man who was well ahead of his time.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910. 

Review:

“Who Is Mark Twain? is a refreshing reintroduction to both [Twain’s] critical analytical thought and his playful sense of humor.” (Los Angeles Times)

“Twain’s wit and lethally precise powers of description are on full display in Who Is Mark Twain?” (Maud Newton)

“More than 100 years after [Twain] wrote these stories, they remain not only remarkably funny but remarkably modern....Ninety-nine years after his death, Twain still manages to get the last laugh.” (Vanity Fair)

“[Twain] was, in the phrase of his friend William Dean Howells, ‘the Lincoln of our literature’...At the heart of his work lies that greatest of all American qualities: irreverence.” (Washington Post)

“As funny and insightful as any of [Twain’s] published and well-known works, these essays take on the federal government, religion, race, fame, and even the literary canon with a sharp-eyed clarity we can chuckle over as we read while feeling uncomfortable knowing that they feel all too contemporary.” (Walter Mosley)

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061735019
• ISBN 13: 9780061735011
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256