This week journalist Ron Chernow is publishing his eighth book, a rollicking and comprehensive portrait of Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, the humorist and orator who turned a ...

The Mississippi Valley is "as tranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-worldly about it … nothing to hang a fret or worry upon." It's a beautiful sentiment, and yet it contrasts with ...

Mark Twain was America’s first celebrity, a multiplatform entertainer loved and recognized all over the world. Fans from America to Europe to Australia bought his books and flocked to his one-man ...

It’s said that when “War and Peace” was finished and about to be published, Tolstoy looked at the huge book and suddenly exclaimed, “The yacht race! I forgot to put in the yacht race!” At 1,174 pages, ...

Ron Chernow's latest book, "Mark Twain," explores the author's life, including his connection to Elmira, New York. Twain's marriage into Elmira's Langdon family was transformative, influencing his ...

America sees itself in a young boy who learns—but not too much—and whose story ends with his eyes on an open horizon, a stretch of land claimed by the nation but not yet bound to it. That’s where, in ...

Every year, we celebrate the birthday of Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), America’s defining humorist. His legacy—spanning classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of ...

Ron Chernow’s “Mark Twain” is a mountain of a book. As Mark Twain is one of my all-time favorites — and probably the most important and influential writer who put words into my brain — I couldn’t wait ...

In the spring of 2019, while researching my book on Mark Twain, I came across a reference to a Twain novel, “Jap Herron,” written in 1917. This was a surprising discovery since I have been studying ...