Mark Twain

Synopsis

The #1 New York Times Bestseller • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025• A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book • Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME , The Guardian, Bloomberg , The Christian Science Monitor , and Kirkus Reviews “Comprehensive, enthralling . . .

Mark Twain flows like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain’s own exuberance.” — The Boston Globe “Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . .

For all its length and detail, [ Mark Twain ] is deeply absorbing throughout.” — The Washington Post 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…