The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography, Paperback

Description

In this magisterial full-scale biography of America s greatest storyteller and satirist, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Fred Kaplan refashions our image of Mark Twain and etches a vibrant portrait of a singular personality who created some of the most memorable literary characters of our culture. He coined the phrase the Gilded Age, spoke out vigorously against racism and imperialism, and in his multifaceted singularity as writer, businessman, polemicist, investor, inventor, and self-promoter became the most widely extolled and most dominant icon of American literature. As Kaplan writes, There has been no one like him since. "

About the author

Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of the critically acclaimed biographies Gore Vidal, Henry James, Dickens, and Thomas Carlyle, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He has held Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and was a Fellow of the National Humanities Center. He lives in Boothbay, Maine.