Singular Mark Twain

With this new biography, Fred Kaplan offers a new perspective to the oft-told tales of Mark Twain's life and works. Although biographers have long navigated the ambiguous and misleading labyrinth of Twain's life and works, Kaplan draws from new research and previously unavailable source materials to create a ground-breaking critical biography.

He was born Samuel Clemens, though he took on the name of Mark Twain, assuming with the name another identity. Kaplan explains, "Gradually, he himself began to elide the distinction between, even to merge, the two identities." Far from experiencing split personalities, he became the singular Mark Twain to the public, and even to his closest friends. "Though the name suggests division," Kaplan says, "the reality tended toward unity."

Read more about "The Singular Mark Twain."