Mark Twain biography review

One of my favorite books is Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a timeless tale about an adventurous but unfortunate boy who helped a slave escape in the Deep South. Huck’s coming-of-age narrative was full of boyhood innocence, adventure, and humor, but it was also surprisingly profound. So, I naturally wondered if the Huck Finn character was derived from the author’s personality. To find out, I read Ron Chernow’s best-selling book about the life of Mark Twain. Here’s our Mark Twain biography review.

When I was young, I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and loved it. I could really identify with the unfortunate but enterprising Huck Finn, and I even had the same outlook on life that Huck had.

Recently, I read Huck Finn again, and found even more things to like about that inventive story. It was humorous, but also addressed deep issues about race, equality, and the hypocrisy of organized religion.

Since then, I have been a big fan of everything that Mark Twain had written and pontificated about. That’s why, when I heard that Ron Chernow had released a large, complete biography of Twain, I knew I had to read it.

This biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow is a massively big book. And, it’s heavy, too. Literally, this book takes both hands to handle.

There are over 1,000 pages of text, and that doesn’t include the fascinating Prelude, the helpful Abbreviations, the long list of Notes, and the helpful Bibliography.

Much of the content is culled from letters that were sent by Mark Twain to his family. In addition, the author included excerpts and quotations from letters that Twain’s family and friends had written to each other.

The letters included personal details about Twain, including his business dealings, his interactions with his staff, and his troubled relationships with his children.

I loved the old black-and-white photographs of Mark Twain, along with his family and friends. They were so fascinating. In fact, I wish there had been more.

As I looked at them, I imaged that they were alive at that moment in time, but they are like ghosts now. But, the image still contains their memories, and to me, that makes these photographs almost magical.

This massive, well-researched biography gave me a complete picture of the successes and tribulations of Mark Twain’s long life. Many of the revelations confirmed what I had already known about Twain’s life, and made me admire this author even more. Read more in our Mark Twain biography review!

But, I was disappointed about other aspects of Twain’s life and personality that this biography revealed. For instance, he had a fascination with young teenage girls, and some even younger.

Fortunately, the biographer was unable to discover any, not even a whisper of complaints, parental concern, or even chatter of inappropriate behavior. Of course, there was circumstantial evidence, but never any complaints or charges or even misgivings from the girls’ parents.

Mark Twain was also attracted to get-rich-quick schemes. In addition, he was intrigued by money-making schemes that might have taken decades to yield big dividends.

From massive typesetting machines, to medicinal supplements, Mark Twain had an open mind, and an open wallet. He was eager to solidify not only his own financial well-being, but also provide income for his daughters after he had passed away.

As I read and learned more about Mark Twain’s siblings, and his wife and children, I was very surprised that he had so many difficult, bittersweet relationships. Despite being a brilliant orator, humorist, and writer, Mark Twain was not always successful with his interpersonal connections.

Towards the end of Twain’s life, he seemed to really suffer from loneliness. The well-known orator and author really seemed to be all alone, even when surrounded by a crowd. In fact, I felt sorrowful about his tragic relationships as he got older.

Fortunately, there were some happy moments. Yes, there were times throughout his life when Twain was blessed by his family life, and the people who worked with him and supported him.

For those happier times, I am really grateful. And, it’s because, throughout my own life, I have thought of Mark Twain as being this honest, good, and forthright person—which he was! So, he deserved to have a good, happy life.

In addition to Twain’s failed investments, he also enjoyed extremely successful financial speculations. So, the author’s financial health, while being volatile, did have its successes.

And let’s not forget that Twain was a successful author, as well as a popular orator and humorist. This biography reveals all of those successes, and the challenges Twain had to endure to reap the fruits of his labor.

Ron Chernow talks about his Mark Twain biography, and about Mark Twain, the American writer and humorist.

As a successful humorist and author, Twain had an artistic temperament. Many times, his difficult personality made his family life challenging.

However, there was no doubt that Mark Twain loved his wife, Livy (Olivia), and his children. In this biography, we learn about each of their fascinating stories.

I especially loved learning aspects about Twain’s children that I had never heard before. They include the tragic life and loves of his oldest daughter, Susy, as well as the talents of Clara, and the concerns for animal welfare and equality displayed by Jean.

These stories were all fascinating, but tragic at the same time. But, that’s the story of all our lives as human beings. And Mark Twain was, above all, a human being who did make mistakes. So what—we all do!

In the life of Mark Twain, there was no lack of drama and intrigue. As I already noted, Twain was fascinated by young girls. In addition, Twain had an attractive assistant, who was obsessed with her boss.

So, there were all kinds of melodramatic intrigues that were revealed in this biography. They were all very interesting, and changed my perceptions of this brilliant author.

As this biography explains, Twain believed in equal rights for all human beings. That included equal rights for not only Black and Brown people, but also women.

In other words, Mark Twain was a radical. Surprisingly, Mark Twain was very vocal about his belief that all women should have the same rights as men. So, this outspoken author had some radical beliefs for the more rough-hewn times in which he lived.

One of the things I most appreciated about Mark Twain was his skepticism of organized religion. That skepticism was brought to life in his book about Huck Finn, as the boy helped hide a Black slave from his owners during their adventures on the Mississippi River.

Twain wrote about his doubts in several books, including The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth (published posthumously). For instance, in Letters from the Earth, Twain ridiculed the Bible, and accused God of “cruel, pitiless behavior towards his creatures.” (page 1005, Letters from the Earth chapter.)

If we listen to today’s top news stories, there is no doubt that Mark Twain was exactly correct in his conclusions about the failures of organized religions and their concept of a ‘loving’ god.

This biography reveals that Mark Twain, especially in his younger years, had some racist beliefs. Fortunately, as the author aged, his racist beliefs evolved.

The more the author traveled and met new people, the more open-minded and accepting he became of other races and beliefs. In fact, this biography reveals moments when he admired, and even dreamed, about women with very dark skin. It was awesome!

Here’s the famous quote that Twain wrote about travelling and how it can open up a person’s mind to new experiences and new, but different, people:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

So, as the author aged, he became more progressive and maybe even a little more radical in his beliefs. As a senior citizen, Mark Twain was not a racist, and he believed in equal rights for all people and for all genders.

As a best-selling author, and as a popular humorist, Mark Twain had lots of clever, pithy quotes. And, some of them were included in this biography.

Often, his quotes were cleverly short, but to the point. Many times, Twain included aspects of those quotes in his popular books, including Huck Finn.

Here are a few of my favorite Mark Twain quotes from the biography. Some of them I haven’t heard before:

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.” (on page 641, The European Edison chapter)

“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” (I think Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer valued this quote as they learned about life.)

When speaking about criminals who had burglarized his house and were now in prison, Twain quipped, “Now they are in jail, and if they keep on they will go to Congress.” (on page 944, Mark Twain’s Daughter chapter) That short, pithy quote is truer now, more than ever!

Some short, fun facts about Mark Twain: the father of American literature. Some great old photos, too!

While I found this biography to be extremely informative, I was bothered by the amount of repetitive content. Sometimes, the sentences or paragraphs would be repeated almost word-for-word.

Fortunately, the repetitions occurred in different chapters, and were used in relation to other peoples’ perspectives. From my perspective, however, I wish the publisher had edited out more of those repetitions.

Overall, the repetitions really made this otherwise informative biography very difficult and frustrating to read. As I read, I often wondered if I had already read this chapter. But no, the content kept repeating.

The Mark Twain biography contains lots of minute details about everything. Some of the details include how much money Twain made from publishing a specific book, and how much he made (or lost) for his speaking engagements.

In addition, there are details about his children and his evolving relationships with them (fascinating), details about his investments, details about how he interacted with young girls, and details, details, and more details.

Fortunately, I feel I had really gotten my money’s worth out of this massive book, thanks to all the data. But, the details might have been a little too much.

Could editing have helped this book be more readable? Yes, I think so. I believe there were too many details, which the author repeated too often. That’s my big criticism of this book and the writing style of the biographer.

Despite my criticisms, I still learned so much about Mark Twain from this biography. And, that was the whole point of me reading this biography in the first place. So, overall, the biographer did a fantastic job of helping us learn about Mark Twain.

FINAL VERDICT:

As a lifelong reader of Mark Twain, I am a great admirer of his work. I love his pithy humor, and I really empathized with his Huckleberry Finn character in one of my favorite books of his.

This biography was eye-opening, and made me realize that my literary hero was also a human being. He was capable of making mistakes, and he had some character flaws.

But, despite his personality flaws, he was still brilliant, and still encapsulated the meaning of being a citizen of the United States. He accurately captured the American personality in his novels and his orations.

Therefore, if you’re also a fan of Mark Twain, I recommend that you read this biography, too. The book is long, and at times tedious. But that’s because the author included so much content and data.

Thank you for reading our Mark Twain biography review. If you’re a fan of Mark Twain, and have read this biography, or have read his novels, please share your thoughts!

Content and photos by Doug Martin and Our Book Banter