Review by Choice Review
Combining broad scope with intricate detailing, this last volume in Scharnhorst's three-volume biography of Mark Twain is special. The downward trajectory of Twain's later life--deaths, bankruptcy, physical decay, pessimism--would seem to be too depressing for enjoyable reading, but Scharnhorst never lets that mood prevail. He expands on the first two volumes (CH, Aug'18, 55-4376; CH, Jan'20, 57-1566) by highlighting the joy, pathos, tragedy, and ultimate success of Twain's literary career. Citations from Twain's papers give a unique stamp to a breadth of events: dinners, lectures, trips, financial deals, other authors, later writings, public responses to almost everything. Scharnhorst's account of Twain's irrepressible need to create stories expressing hope, ethical integrity, and the national spirit--even when he grapples with his own darkness--energizes the examination. Enriched with details from newspapers, public statements, and homage of others, the third volume is a page turner. Scharnhorst's illuminating responses to Twain's progress--often in the form of cascades of telling phrases from book reviews (positive and negative)--make the biography a window into national and international culture. Also notable is the inclusion of Twain's own words--Scharnhorst quotes epithets that previous biographers tiptoed around--which puts Twain's crassness, vulgarity, and humanity on display. This detailed scholarly study, with its extraordinary documentation, caps Scharnhorst's effort. This biography is unlikely to be superseded for decades. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --David E. E. Sloane, emeritus, University of New Haven
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Scharnhorst (Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews), an English professor at the University of New Mexico, concludes his three-volume biography of Samuel Clemens (1835--1910), aka Mark Twain, with a fantastic account of the last two decades of the author's life. Scharnhorst picks up in June 1891 as Twain and his family traveled to Europe, a time when even the author didn't know "how deeply he was in debt" after an unsuccessful publishing venture. During his time abroad, Twain wrote a sequel to Tom Sawyer and met with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Oscar Wilde. But his international celebrity was no shield to devastating personal losses: his eldest daughter Susy died in 1896 from spinal meningitis, the "most traumatic event" in his life, and his wife, Livy, died a few years later. Scharnhorst conveys Twain's grief in sharp detail, and captures Twain's political engagement near the end of his life, too: in 1904, he campaigned against Belgium's King Leopold II's exploitation of the people of Congo, efforts consistent with his prior support of women's suffrage and his outspokenness against racism. Scharnhorst uses exhaustive research and granular detail to great effect, creating a fantastic portrait of his subject. This coda to a well-lived life is a stunner. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Meticulous research informs the third volume of a scholarly biography. Scharnhorst completes his commodious life of Twain with a densely detailed chronology of personal trauma and professional triumph, including the publication of The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Following the Equator, and chapters of his rambling autobiography. Always needing money, Sam, as Scharnhorst calls him, worked tirelessly--writing, lecturing, performing--to compensate for bad business dealings and several economic depressions. In 1891, he carted his wife, daughters, and maid to Europe, hoping they could live more cheaply than at home. Besides financial pressures, he faced family stresses. In 1896, his beloved daughter Susy died of spinal meningitis, for which he blamed himself. If he had not been "forced by financial exigency to lecture around the world to pay his debts," he could have kept the family in America; instead, Susy died "a pauper & an exile." Jean, another daughter, had epilepsy, a condition that deteriorated into violent outbursts, especially against her father; she died in 1909. Clara, pursuing a singing career, was rebellious and, because Sam supported her, expensive. His wife, Livy, suffered from a heart condition for which she futilely sought a cure; she died in 1904. Scharnhorst recounts all of Sam's writing output and its critical reception; the events in his packed social calendar; his many public appearances before crowds that numbered in the thousands; and his evolution from social satirist and man of letters to "cultural critic, public intellectual, and political sage." Among the issues against which he railed were racism; antisemitism; Christian Science and Christian missionaries; imperialism; and "the rapacity and materialism of twentieth-century America, which he blamed on such post--Civil War fat cats as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Jay Gould." Generous but never apologetic, Scharnhorst ably reveals a complex man: irascible, vain, and hungry for adulation. An authoritative portrait of the iconic and iconoclastic author. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
