Who Is Mark Twain?

"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Mark Twain said at the top of an 1865 letter to his brother, "for I don't want any absurd -literary remains' and -unpublished letters of Mark Twain' published after I am planted."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.

“"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”

"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

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'.

"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.

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