
Mark Twain
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Narrated by:
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Jason Culp
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By:
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Ron Chernow
About this listen
The #1 New York Times Bestseller!
“Comprehensive, enthralling . . . Mark Twain flows like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain’s own exuberance.”—The Boston Globe
“Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . . For all its length and detail, [Mark Twain] is deeply absorbing throughout.”—The Washington Post
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain
Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.
In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.
Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.
©2025 Ron Chernow (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . . For all its length and detail, [Mark Twain] is deeply absorbing throughout.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“A rollicking and comprehensive portrait of Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, the humorist and orator who turned a frontiersman’s wit into an American legacy.”—Erin Vanderhoof, Vanity Fair
“Chernow’s biography avoids the trap of idolizing Twain and gives an honest assessment of the author’s life, including his flaws and contradictions . . . Chernow’s willingness to give readers the unvarnished truth about Twain makes the biography stand out, as does his ability to simultaneously explore the historical and literary context of Twain’s writing . . . The recurring theme of Chernow’s biography is Twain’s love affair with the written word, and it ably demonstrates the impact that relationship had on a nation.”—Associated Press
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Story
Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist. Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.
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He makes Bill Gates look like a Pauper!
- By Rick on 11-04-13
By: Ron Chernow
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 35 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.
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An Outstanding & Riveting Book!
- By Kevin on 03-04-05
By: Ron Chernow
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Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1
- The Complete and Authoritative Edition
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 24 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain’s death. In celebration of this important milestone, here, for the first time, is Mark Twain’s uncensored autobiography, in its entirety, exactly as he left it. This major literary event offers the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain’s authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave, as he intended.
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Not what I was expecting...
- By SHolland10 on 01-30-11
By: Mark Twain
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The House of Morgan
- An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.
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The construction of the House of Morgan
- By Darwin8u on 10-22-18
By: Ron Chernow
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Grant
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 23 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
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Compelling story of an American Icon
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-18
By: Ron Chernow
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The British Are Coming
- The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777
- By: Rick Atkinson
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Rick Atkinson - introduction
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Abridged edition: Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy he recounts the first 21 months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force.
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Good book, Bad reader.
- By Sandy McCall on 08-01-21
By: Rick Atkinson
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
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Abridged history
- By Nick on 02-19-07
By: Ron Chernow
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Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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Great Book, Great Reader
- By DanD on 07-10-11
By: Ron Chernow
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Martin Van Buren
- America's First Politician
- By: James M. Bradley
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 26 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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This new biography of Van Buren—the first full-scale portrait in four decades—charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.
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Woke
- By sriaknal on 06-06-25
By: James M. Bradley
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Churchill
- Walking with Destiny
- By: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 50 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman, and leader can finally be fully understood.
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Superb Biography
- By Jean on 03-03-19
By: Andrew Roberts
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Zbig
- The Life and Times of Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet
- By: Edward Luce
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 23 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski—President Carter’s national security advisor and one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers—from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today.
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A little too long
- By Julie Pollaro on 07-05-25
By: Edward Luce
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Original Sin
- President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
- By: Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson
- Narrated by: Jake Tapper
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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From two of America’s most respected journalists, an unflinching and explosive reckoning with one of the most fateful decisions in American political history: Joe Biden’s run for reelection despite evidence of his serious decline—amid desperate efforts to hide the extent of that deterioration.
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Jake Tappers lack of accountability
- By M. Morgan on 05-26-25
By: Jake Tapper, and others
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Philip and Alexander
- Kings and Conquerors
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Neil Dickson
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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This definitive biography of one of history's most influential father-son duos tells the story of two rulers who gripped the world - and their rise and fall from power.
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Horrible narrator
- By Anonymous User on 01-05-21
The reader quoted Twain using a voice that sounded like what I suspected he would, and I did enjoy that.
Pretty long
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A Masterpiece of Biographical Literature
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A Towering Figure
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Another great book
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Mark Twain stood for so much more than I realized
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Well-researched and detailed
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By Ron Chernow
I have previously read Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant, which I now see as the most even handed, authoritative account of Grant’s life. It is no surprise to me that Chernow found it necessary to write Mark Twain’s life, as Grant and Twain’s lives, beyond all reason, became intertwined.
I learned a great deal I did not know about Samuel Clemons. His path and maturation is almost a mirror of the same for America. He started life with pre Civil War southern racism, and ended it quite the opposite. He dealt with depression and self doubt, which you do not find evidenced in his writings. His family life was worthy of Peyton Place, and he was accused of pedophilia in his later years.
You will not find more than incidental references to his books, as the focus is more his life than a bibliography.
Very interesting and worth the time.
Exceptional
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Mark Twain lives on
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Story of a life in real time
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Another home run
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