Mark Twain's America

1.4 hrs read
Rate this book:
351 pages 1932

About This Book

Beginning in 1835, the birth year of Samuel Clemens, and extending through the Gilded Age, Mark Twain's America depicts the vigorous social and historical forces that produced the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Bernard DeVoto catches a people moving west: Twain's own family drifting down the Ohio, emigrants of every stripe, the famous and the obscure.

Answering genteel critics such as Van Wyck Brooks, who blamed the American frontier for stifling Twain's genius, DeVoto shows that, in fact, Twain's early days in Nevada and California made a writer of him. Mark Twain's America, first published in 1932, enriched by humor and supernatural slave lore, is an enduring work of American literary and cultural criticism.

Buy This Book

As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate, BookOrb earns from qualifying purchases.

Write a Review

Sign in to write a review.