Mark Twain: The Bachelor Years

Mark Twain: The Bachelor Years by Margaret Sanborn provides an unprecedented look at the formative years of America’s best-known and best-loved writer and humorist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. This thorough and delightful examination covers Twain’s life from birth in 1835 to his marriage at age thirty-four. These years of wildly varied experiences helped form the bases of his great classics, including The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn. Sanborn relies heavily on Twain’s personal letters to give readers insight into the texture of his personality, both its darker and lighter aspects. If you’re interested in Twain’s early life and literary influences, this biography is a fascinating read!