MR. CLEMENS AND MARK TWAIN: A BIOGRAPHY
             "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography" is a wonderful narrative about the lives
             of two men, embodied in one person. Both of these men were vaguely similar, but astoundingly different from one another. As Mark Twain, the person was a literary genius and a bold adventurer who cared little for earthly luxuries. His knack for adventures took him to places such as South America, where he intended to get rich marketing coca and where he spent days as an apprentice pilot on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. As Mr. Clemens, he was the prince who made fortunes and lost them on risky ventures with relative ease. He married an heiress and lived an extravagant life. Justin Kaplan portrays both aspects of the man's life in a wonderful manner. This biography carries the great man through the glorious successes and bitter tragedies that he came across in his life. It gives the readers a wonderful insider's view on the life of America's greatest humorist and peerless statesman.
             Kaplan portrays both sides of the life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens who was born on November 30, 1835 to John Marshal and Jane Lampton Clemens in Florida, Missouri. Later he would embark on an eventful life, without which we would have been deprived of a treasure of masterpieces. This was the life of Mark Twain.
             Kaplan writes the biography of Twain in a manner like no other biography of the man. It is because Kaplan provides the readers with unique insights on the person. He recounts the early misfortunes of Clemens as, after the death of his father in 1847, he was forced to leave school and take care of his family with his brother Orion. Their father hadn't left much wealth for them, but he endowed them with a knack for engaging in optimistic ventures promising quick riches. Clemens went out in the world without proper schooling and became a self-taught man. This lack of proper s...