The fact that Samuel Langhorne Clemens came to use his pen name, Mark Twain, in his personal letters and in his personal life is significant to Kaplan (English literature, Queens College) because it demonstrates the extent to which he was a unified, singular, individual, integrating his life and his art. In Kaplan's sympathetic biography, charges of racism are countered by descriptions of the growth of Twain's progressivism (as well as his anti-imperialism), especially during his later years in virtual exile from the United States. Annotation #160;2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Biographers have always found plenty to say about the life of Samuel Clemens (1835-1910). Kaplan's well-drawn life of America's beloved humorist and closet misanthrope is the latest in that regular flow, which began almost immediately after his death. Dictating the autobiography that was published only posthumously, Clemens observed, "I think we never become really & genuinely our entire & honest selves until we are dead-and not then until we have been dead years & years." With this perspective, Kaplan does not impose a path or goal on Clemens's picaresque and opportunistic career, merely noting his belief in luck throughout. If Clemens had not failed to find regular employment as a typesetter in Philadelphia, establish himself as a river pilot on the Mississippi before the Civil War or strike it rich as a prospector in Nevada, Mark Twain would not have emerged as the pen name for humorous articles in newspapers out west or a stage name for comic lectures back east. The surprising, reputation-making successes of The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Innocents Abroad was later matched by the failures of his publishing and printing ventures and the deaths of two of his daughters and his wife. Although Mark Twain would always be viewed popularly as a humorist, Kaplan highlights Clemens's all-American skepticism and his late-developing progressive attitudes on race relations and imperialism. Kaplan's readable and sympathetic work celebrates Sam Clemens (and the inspiring minor personages in his life) over the celebrity figure of Mark Twain, even as he asserts their ultimate unity.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Kaplan (English, Queens Coll.), biographer of Dickens and other literary giants, presents a vividly detailed account of the life of Samuel L. Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, by drawing on his family history, esteemed friends, and world travels. Each chapter is broken down into a specific span of years, making the book an easy point of reference for research. Kaplan relies on primary and secondary resources, including family letters and correspondence, to come to distinct conclusions about Twain. He emphasizes Twain's estranged relationship with his father, his enjoyable years as a bachelor and steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, and his desire to succeed financially as a journalist and then a novelist. He looks closely at what may have led Twain to criticize slavery and other social customs of the day, and how his early comic writing not only allowed him to get away with such criticism but also to form a foundation of admirable readers. Throughout this dense tome, Kaplan clearly shows the connection between Twain's writing and the people and events that surrounded his life. However, the book's strength is also its weakness: in-depth descriptions and analysis of financial transactions, conversations, business trips, sicknesses, family dramas, and other normal life events will hold the attention of only serious Twain enthusiasts. Still, as Kaplan points out, the name Mark Twain conjures up images of a particular piece of American culture and history that interests a great number of people. Recommended for large academic libraries.-Jaime Anderson, Cty. of Henrico P.L., VACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Kaplan begins his biographical assault on received wisdom about America's most famous novelist with the wordplay implicit in his title: Mark Twain was not only a singular writer (uniquely gifted and unsurpassed in his influence), but he was also a singular personality (not multiple or divided), his pen name signifying no deep psychic split of the sort critics have posited. Real contradictions do emerge in the life of a man who could, for instance, ridicule religion as foolish superstition and yet jump at the chance to publish the pope's authorized biography. But in these contradictions, Kaplan sees no more than the inconsistencies typical of a sophisticated mind, not deep fissures separating the artist Twain from the commercialist Clemens. Kaplan does limn a remarkably complex evolution in Twain's metamorphosis from a lightweight humorist with a flair for travel journalism into the probing author of a landmark novel on race relations, Huckleberry Finn. Yet Kaplan also highlights personal weaknesses that stubbornly resisted change: Twain's self-lacerating sense of guilt after every family tragedy; his foolish penchant for investing in unproven technologies; his vulnerability to personal and literary criticism. Never obtrusive, Kaplan's aesthetic and psychological insights inhere naturally in a lucid narrative. Like Kaplan's acclaimed biographies of Carlyle, Dickens, and James, this book will enlighten specialists and delight general readers. BryceChristensen. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Introduction
1 The Best Boy You Had, 1835-1847
2 The Fifty-Dollar Bill, 1847-1857
3 The River, 1857-1861
4 The Mark Twain Ledge, 1861-1684
5 A Fair Wind, 1864-1866
6 Straight Gate, 1866-1867
7 And Narrow Way, 1867
8 Home and Anchorage, 1868-1870
9 Comfort, 1870-1872
10 The Lion, 1872-1874
11 God's Fool, 1874-1879
12 Such Being My Nature, 1879-1882
13 Infinitely Shaded, 1882-1885
14 One of the Vanderbilt Gang, 1886-1891
15 Exile & Desolate, 1891-1895
16 Disappointment to the End, 1895-1896
17 Sundays in Hell, 1896-1900
18 Sweetheart of My Youth, 1900-1904
19 The Damned Human Race Luncheon Club, 1904-1910
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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