Mark Twain

By: Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan

Narrated by: Bill Meisle

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This book pulls together material from a variety of published and unpublished sources.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.

Twain believed that “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” This paradox fueled his hilarity and lay at the core of this irreverent yet profoundly serious author. With essays by Russell Banks, Jocelyn Chadwick, Ron Powers, and John Boyer, as well as an interview with actor and
frequent Twain portrayer Hal Holbrook, this book provides a full and rich portrayal of the first figure of American letters.©2001 The American Lives Film Project; (P)2001 Random House Inc., Random House Audio, a Division of Random House Inc.

Excellent!

I was thoroughly immersed in the story. The narration was top notch and really made the story come alive for me.
Well done by all involved in making this available to listeners.

A treat!

This audiobook is a treat. It's actually three (short) books in one. The first is a five-hour biography, based on the Ken Burns documentary. The biography is well-researched, well-written, and well-narrated, and it's loaded with quotes, some of them extensive, from Twain and the people who knew him. Other biographies (like the one by Fred Kaplan) are more detailed, but this one covers all the main points in a concise and entertaining way. It doesn't shy away from the darker years, when many of Twain's loved ones had died and his attitude became more pessimistic and deterministic than ever.

The second part is a collection of short essays and extracts by Twain, chosen to illustrate both his wit and his range. I'm not sure what the organizing principle is here, but it's fun to listen to.

The third part is a collection of essays by some of the scholars who were interviewed for the documentary. They cover a broad range of topics, some biographical, some literary, some social: race, racism, and racist language are among the topics discussed in depth. One biographical essay is by Ron Powers, another Twain biographer who is himself represented elsewhere on Audible.com. This part also includes the transcript of an interview with Hal Holbrook, developer (and actor) of the one-man show "Mark Twain Tonight!". (Holbrook, at one point, remembers a quote from Twain that made me laugh out loud: "The problem isn't that there are so many fools in the world; the problem is that lightning isn't distributed right.") It's unfortunate that Audible doesn't carry Mark Twain Tonight! as a separate title (it IS available on iTunes, if you're interested).

I love Mark Twain. I loved this audiobook. The first part lays the groundwork, the other two expand on it. Taken together, they introduce many sides of this many-sided prince among writers.

Get ready to be enlightened

Completely spellbinding from start to finish.
one of the greatest audiobooks I have in my library.
Do not hesitate to purchase it .

Wonderful!

I am trying to educate myself about Twain and his life and his stories. This book was very helpful in that regard.

Very well read & organized, but superficial

This is a good introduction to the life of Twain, but it is more multimedia oriented than history oriented. It is missing vital pieces of his biography (esp. his pre-fame period) and it is utterly missing the analysis I like to see (not excessive, but enough to make the story more interesting). All that said, I recommend the book to you.