"Gary Scharnhorst's monumental biography sets a new standard for comprehensiveness. This will prove to be the standard biography for our generation."-- Alan Gribben , author of Mark Twain's Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading "Clear and engaging, Scharnhorst's prose keeps you rolling happily through this consummate American adventure."-- Bruce Michelson , author of Printer's Devil: Mark Twain and the American Publishing Revolution This book begins the first multi-volume biography of Samuel Clemens to appear in over a century. In the succeeding years, Clemens biographers have either tailored their narratives to fit the parameters of a single volume or focused on a particular period or aspect of Clemens's life, because the whole of that epic life cannot be compressed into a single volume. In The Life of Mark Twain , Gary Scharnhorst has chosen to write a complete biography plotted from beginning to end, from a single point of view, on an expansive canvas. With dozens of Mark Twain biographies available, what is left unsaid? On average, a hundred Clemens letters and a couple of Clemens interviews surface every year. Scharnhorst has located documents relevant to Clemens's life in Missouri, along the Mississippi River, and in the West, including some which have been presumed lost.

Over three volumes, Scharnhorst elucidates the life of arguably the greatest American writer and reveals the alchemy of his gifted imagination. Gary Scharnhorst is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico. He is the author or editor of fifty books, including Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics: Letters to the Editor. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.