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Mark Twain: Home

A reading list of works by and about Mark Twain.

Mark Twain

This guide contains information on McKee Library's collection of resources relating to Mark Twain, including recommended books for further reading, and films. 

McKee Library is also the home to the Duane and Eunice Bietz Collection, which houses books by and about Mark Twain. Included in the collection are several rare first editions, signed copies, periodicals, memorabilia, and authentic letters written by Mark Twain. More information about the collection be found on our website.

Internet Resources

Research & Resources

Streaming Media

Perspectives

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1

Considered to be one of America's all-time brightest authors, Mark Twain has left his mark on the literary world. Authoring such gems as "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Twain's insight on the ever-evolving and expanding America gave the world a better understanding on the social issues that plagued the country. Here in his own words, Twain chronicles his life and career, offering some perspectives on how his books were created.

The Bohemians

Mark Twain roars into San Francisco in 1863. Pretty soon he's drunk on champagne, oysters, and the city's intoxicating energy. Twenty-seven years old, fleeing the Civil War and seeking adventure, Twain finds a global seaport flush with new money and peopled by fortune seekers from five continents. The war that is ravaging the rest of the country has only made San Francisco richer- the economy booms, and newspapers and magazines thrive, feeding the city's growing literary scene. The bards of the moment are the Bohemians, a band of young eccentric writers seeking to create a new American voice at the country's edge. There's literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protector of the group. Twain joins their ranks, and the experiences that follow put him on the path to greatness. 

Mark Twain: A Life

InMark Twain,Ron Powers consummates years of research with atour de forceon the life of our culture's founding father. He offers Sam Clemens as he lived, breathed, and wrote. With the assistance of the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley, he has drawn on thousands of letters and notebook entries, many only recently discovered.Sam Clemens left his frontier boyhood in Missouri for a life on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats. He skirted the western theater of the Civil War before taking off for an uproarious drunken newspaper career in the Nevada of the Wild West. As his fame as a humorist and lecturer spread around the country, he took the East Coast by storm. He wooed and won his lifelong devoted wife, yet quietly pined for the girl who was his first crush. He became the toast of Europe and a celebrity who toured the globe. His comments on everything he saw, many published here for the first time, are priceless.The man that emerges in Powers's brilliant telling is both the magnetic, acerbic, and hilarious Mark Twain of myth and a devoted friend, husband, and father. Mark Twain left us our greatest voice. Samuel Clemens left us one of our most American of lives.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain towered above the American literary landscape. With a worldwide fame greater than that of statesmen, scientists, or entertainers, Twain was in his own words "the most conspicuous man on the planet." Now, in this wonderful recounting of his career, Larzer Ziff offers an incisive,illuminating look at one of the giants of American letters. Mark Twain emerges in this book as something of a paradox. His humor made him rich and famous, but he was unhappy with the role of humorist. He satirized the rapacious economic practices of his society, yet was caught up in those very practices himself. He was a literary genius whorevolutionized the national literature, yet was unable to resist whatever quirky notion or joke that crossed his mind, often straying from his plot or contradicting his theme. Ziff offers a lively account of Twain's early years, explores all his major fiction, and concludes with a consideration ofhis craftsmanship and his strength as a cultural critic. He offers particularly telling insight into Twain's travel writings, providing for example an insightful account of Following the Equator, perhaps Twain's most underrated work. Throughout the book, Ziff examines Twain's writings in light ofthe literary cultures of his day--from frontier humorists to Matthew Arnold--and of parallel literary works of his time--comparing, for example, A Connecticut Yankee with major utopian works of the same decade. Thus the book is both a work of literary criticism and of cultural history. Compact and sparkling, here then is an invaluable introduction to Mark Twain, capturing the humor and the contradictions of America's most beloved writer.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

`You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", but that ain't no matter.'So begins, in characteristic fashion, one of the greatest American novels. Narrated by a poor, illiterate white boy living in America's deep South before the Civil War, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the story of Huck's escape from his brutal father and the relationship that grows between himand Jim, the slave who is fleeing from an even more brutal oppression. As they journey down the Mississippi their adventures address some of the most profound human conundrums: the prejudices of class, age, and colour are pitted against the qualities of hope, courage, and moral character.Enormously influential in the development of American literature, Huckleberry Finn remains a controversial novel at the centre of impassioned critical debate. This edition discusses all the current issues and the evolution of Mark Twain's penetrating genius.

Mark Twain and the Colonel

Mark Twain and the Colonel tells the story of two dominant figures in American culture and politics at the turn of the twentieth century. Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt were often in New York City during this time period and their paths crossed often. In their many appearances before the public, neither was heard to speak ill of the other. But in private they unburdened their minds more candidly, Roosevelt on one occasion volunteering that he would like to skin Mark Twain alive, and Twain saying that he thought Roosevelt to be far and away the worst President we have ever had. Philip McFarland tells the story of the rich years of American history between 1890 and 1910 through the fully engaged involvement of two of its most vital participants. The story begins in 1900, with a welcome on the New York piers extended to one of the nation's best loved figures as he returns from nearly a decade of self-imposed exile. The narrative then unfolds in six sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the United States of the early twentieth century that continues to matter to this day: America as an imperialist nation, America as a continental nation, America as a racial nation, America as a corporate nation, America at home, and America striving for peace. The story nears its end ten years later, in 1910, with that same figure returning once more to Manhattan, beshawled, seated on a deckchair, derby on his head, carried down the gangway while reporters wait on the pier yet again to welcome him home a final time. In this short span of years, the America of the late nineteenth century will move substantially closer to the America we know today, thanks in part to the influence and actions of Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt, two of the most influential figures of the age.

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