The Life of Mark Twain

April 22, 2019
In the scrupulously chronicled second installment of an expected three-part biography (after The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835–1871), Scharnhorst, professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico, reconstructs the period during which Samuel Clemens—aka Mark Twain—wrote many of his most popular works, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Picking up with a now world-renowned Twain moving to Elmira, N.Y., Scharnhorst humanizes rather than lionizes his subject, who struggles with writer’s block, sends amorous letters to his wife while on tour, and basks in constant attention while harrumphing he’d rather be left alone. However, Scharnhorst is careful not to bowdlerize Twain, resisting modern attempts to exonerate him of the anti-Asian prejudice in the play Ah Sin, co-written with Bret Harte. Unnecessarily weighed down by exhaustive research, the book’s tendency to linger over minute details detracts from the vivid drama at its heart, in which, as Twain’s fame and notoriety grows, he proves unable to resist speculating in disastrous ventures, leading to his and his family’s departure from their Hartford, Conn., mansion for financial exile in Europe. Despite some flaws, this remains a masterful, detailed account of America’s most famous literary wit.

Starred review from May 15, 2019
Writing to his publisher in 1884, Mark Twain declared that he had just finished a book and . . . it's a rattling good one. In recounting the repeatedly sidetracked labors culminating in Huckleberry Finn, Scharnhorst illuminates the forging of an American literary masterpiece. In this second volume of what promises to be the definitive biography of Twain (following The Life of Mark Twain: The Early Years, 1835-1871 (2018), readers also watch the incubation of other works, including Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. This painstakingly researched narrative explores the shifting circumstances and evolving motivations of a great author at the peak of his creative powers between the ages of 35 and 55?despite enduring failures in business, clashes in politics, fiascos on the lecture circuit, breakdowns in friendships, and anxieties in family life. Brooding over a young son's death, agonizing over his wife's health, and worrying about a daughter's transgressive sexuality, Twain deals with intense personal stress. Adverse life events hardly justify the plagiarism and racism that Scharnhorst finds in some of Twain's works. But these deplorable authorial lapses do not obscure Twain's literary achievement as a national funnyman whom critics will never laugh off. Readers will anticipate the third and final volume of this masterful biography with high expectations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)