Who Is Mark Twain

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Considered to be way ahead of his time on issues of race and politics, Twain remains one of literature's greatest original stars. Best known perhaps for his legendary Huckleberry Finn and Adventures of Tom Sawyer - his writing actually reached beyond the simple, but perfectly crafted adventure story to tackle serious cultural issues like slavery that most either avoided or ignored. But although it had serious intentions, his writing was always infused with a great sense of humour - and here that is evident in abundance in these 24 never-published-before essays about all elements of life and culture. In the piece 'Jane Austen', for instance Twain wonders if Austen's goal is to 'make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters' whilst the "Happy Memories of the Dental Chair" will make you seriously appreciate modern dentistry.

Reviews

"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." -- 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

Author Bio

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels the ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and the ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. Twain enjoyed immense public popularity, and his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. American author William Faulkner called Twain 'the father of American literature'.