MARK TWAIN: His Life
By
Catherine Owens Peare maintains her good record (see her biographies of Longfellow, Louisa May Alcott and others) as she writes a friendly life of the beloved writer, backgrounding it with good exposition and unforced on-the-scene accounts of real incidents. In boyhood, there is the recreation of life on the Mississippi as young Sam lived and saw it. As he grows to manhood there is his own zest for life, coupled with his experiences-mining, steamboating, reporting, lecturing, travelling and marrying- that produced his legacy to the American heritage. A warm, balanced book.