Mark Twain: A Biography. Complete

by Albert Bigelow Paine

Mark Twain: A Biography is the authorized life by Albert Bigelow Paine, who lived and worked with Twain during his last four years as his secretary and literary executor, and published it in three volumes in 1912, two years after Twain's death. Paine had Twain's own talk, letters and notebooks to draw on, as well as the testimony of his family and friends, and he follows the whole career: the boyhood in Hannibal, the river pilot's years, Nevada and California, the Quaker City voyage, the marriage to Olivia Langdon, Hartford and the great books, the bankruptcy and the lecture tour around the world, the family deaths and the honored old age. It is affectionate and protective of its subject. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.