Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates (review)

This superb book will prove an immensely valuable resource to students of Mark Twain and will be one of those rare scholarly books that should delight a popular audience as well. Given its focus on America’s greatest humorist, it is not surprising that there tends to be at least one good chuckle on every page, and some of the anecdotes recorded here are quite literally laugh-out-loud funny. (I particularly recommend the story about the prim Brit and the western “cowperson” [242].) Yet wonderful humor is not the only thing this splendid volume has to offer. It is by turns insightful, suggestive, and even at times quite moving as it provides a kaleidoscopic account of Twain’s life by scores of people who knew him, often very intimately.

The numerous accounts Scharnhorst has tracked down and reprinted are fascinating in their variety. Each excerpt offers some distinctive perspective on Twain’s life and personality, and yet many excerpts also reinforce each other’s assertions. Many people, for instance, comment that Twain was much more than “just” a humorist and that in his private life he was often in fact profoundly serious. By the time one has read through this book, an extremely rich and multifaceted picture of the man emerges, with his many virtues and his few but inevitable foibles. Many memoirists recount why and how much they loved the man, and it is easy to understand this reaction.

In addition to providing extremely varied insights into Twain, this book offers a view into the nature of American culture and society during his lifetime. Each selection gives us a brief glimpse into some kind of intriguing milieu, and the personalities and writing styles of the memoirists often command real attention on their own. The excerpts are helpfully introduced and annotated. I sometimes wondered how reliable some of the anecdotes were, but for Scharnhorst to have discussed each one at length would have made the volume twice as long as it is. Every Twain scholar will want this work (handsomely produced by the University of Iowa Press) on his or her shelf, and so will many nonacademic readers. Students will love it. It is a book I found truly hard to put down, and when I had to lay it aside for some reason, I did so with real regret and with genuine anticipation of my next opportunity to read it.