ISBN10: 0743248996, ISBN13: 9780743248990, [publisher: Free Press] Softcover Advance Reader's Edition of Uncorrected Proof in paperback. 687pp. w/Notes & Bibliography. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in FINE condition. "A Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning author presents a narrative portrait of Samuel Clemens's life behind his literary persona, in a depiction based on tens of thousands of letters and journal entries that covers his experiences on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats, his 'wild west' Nevada newspaper career, and relationships with such figures as Ulysses S. Grant." [publisher copy] "No one understands the complicated American the world knows as Mark Twain better than Ron Powers. Finally, we have scholarship and writing worthy of the man. Powers's prose is insightful, elegant and gets to the center of Twain's life, humor, tragedy, and outrage."--Ken Burns. "Ron Powers, more than any previous Twain biographer, has placed Samuel Clemens in his proper historical context, and in the process has written more than a biography. He's written history. Personified and exemplified by Mark Twain, American democracy with all its virtues and foibles took its dominant place upon the world stage, and Powers has dramatized that emergence brilliantly."--Russell Banks. Pristine paperback ARC w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding w/no creases in ...