Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

This is comprehensive, meaning that it is long and could have used to be edited down quite a bit, pulling some material out and footnoted, so that it would be reduced to 1/2 the size, or equal parts book and notes. There is too much, and a lot of repetition. That said, you will not find more facts about Twain anywhere, I hazard to guess. Samuel Langhorne Clemens arrived with Halley’s Comet on November 30, 1835 in Hannibal, Missouri. He was the 6th child in a family that dreamed big. His best remembered books are set in the neighborhood of his childhood, but he traveled first the country and then the world, starting at an early age. In his lifetime, Mark Twain was the greatest literary celebrity in the world. In the US, he hobnobbed with presidents; on his many travels, he would dine privately with the German kaiser, the Austrian emperor, or the Prince of Wales. When he was in debt and unable to afford his sprawling mansion in Hartford, CT he inexplicably could live in hotels across Europe as an "economizing effort". He was famous and lived large. He was the bracing, irreverently humorous voice of America. He edited and published Grant's hugely autobiography, but was generally a failed businessman. He had a successful marriage, but a disturbing obsession with young girls. He spoke openly of equality for blacks and was anti-slavery even before the Civil War yet fought briefly for the Confederacy and has some cringe-worthy writing with racist stereotypes. He was complicated that way and Chernow doesn't do a lot to untangle that, despite this heroic effort.