Mark Twain
By: by Geoffrey C. Ward and Dayton Duncan ; based on a documentary film directed by Ken Burns ; written by Dayton Duncan and Geoffrey C. Ward ; with a preface by Ken Burns ; picture research by Susanna Steisel and Pam Tubridy Baucom, and contributions by Russell Banks ... [et al.].
Contributors: Duncan, Dayton.; Burns, Ken, 1953-; Banks, Russell, 1940-
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; Distributed by Random House
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
Subjects: Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.; Humorists, American -- 19th century -- Biography.; Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography.; Journalists -- United States -- Biography.
Genres: Biography.
Description: "Ernest Hemingway called Huckleberry Finn "the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since." Critical opinion of this book hasn't dimmed since Hemingway uttered these words; as author Russell Banks says in these pages, Twain "makes possible an American literature which would otherwise not have been possible." He was the most famous American of his day, and remains in ours the most universally revered American writer.

Here the master storytellers Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan give us the first fully illustrated biography of Mark Twain, American literature's touchstone, its funniest and most inventive figure.".

"This book pulls together material from a variety of published and unpublished sources. It examines not merely his justly famous novels, stories, travelogues, and lectures, but also his diaries, letters, and 275 illustrations and photographs from throughout his life. The authors take us from Samuel Langhorne Clemens's boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, to his time as a riverboat worker - when he adopted the sobriquet "Mark Twain" - to his varied careers as a newspaperman, printer, and author.

They follow him from the home he built in Hartford, Connecticut, to his peripatetic travels across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. We see Twain grieve over his favorite daughter's death, and we see him writing and noticing everything."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 259) and index.