Mark Twain (President Obama's 2025 Summer Reads)(美國版)

★歐巴馬2025夏季選書
★普立茲獎得主Ron Chernow鉅獻，完整揭示馬克吐溫的傳奇人生與影響力
★豐富史料、書信、手稿，真實還原文學大師鮮為人知的掙扎與幽默
★描寫家庭、夢想、創傷、種族與社會批判，層層交織的生命旅程
★理解美國文學、文化與時代精神的最關鍵讀本

普立茲獎傳記大師Ron Chernow以權威筆觸，帶領讀者走進美國文學教父馬克吐溫的多采人生。《Mark Twain》追溯這位幽默天才本名Samuel Clemens的成長歷程，從密西西比河畔的少年、夢想成為輪船領航員，到橫跨報業、文壇，崛起為美國史上第一位全球知名文學名人。馬克吐溫以尖刻風趣的諷刺筆調描繪美國社會，創作《湯姆歷險記》、《哈克貝利費恩歷險記》等經典，深刻影響數代作家與讀者。

這本鉅細靡遺的傳記不僅記錄了Twain的文壇輝煌，更真實揭露他為名聲與財富拚搏、商業投資失利而破產、流亡歐洲以及家庭創傷和晚年孤寂。Chernow透過大量信件與未公開手稿，細膩還原這位作家的光明與陰影——他如何反思奴隸制、批判社會不公，也如何在喪妻喪女的悲痛中，以犀利又動人的文學語言，批判世界同時療癒自己。Twain的故事，就是美國不斷變動與夢想衝突的縮影。

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 the local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn't long until 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 performer, 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 epicenter 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Drawing on Twain's bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country's westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and the only white author of his generation who grappled 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.