Mark Twain
by Ron Chernow
1,174 pages
Penguin Press
Published: May 13, 2025

Until now, readers enchanted by Mark Twain’s folksy, irreverent charm have either relied on Justin Kaplan’s 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winner “Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain” or Ron Powers’s more modern “Mark Twain: A Life.” Chernow’s biography, arriving two decades after Powers’s book, now provides a compelling third option.

Readers familiar with Chernow’s previous biographies will approach this book with high expectations; he has a reputation for delivering eloquent, effortless and engrossing prose. But this biography differs from his previous works both in terms of length (it surpasses even the weighty “Ulysses S. Grant“) and, more importantly, in terms of narrative style and pace…

See the full review at:
www.thebestbiographies.com