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

Never one to suffer fools gladly, especially if they wore crinolines, Mark Twain lost as many friends as he made, and he targeted them all indiscriminately. The first major American writer born west of the Mississippi River, he enjoys a reputation unrivaled in American literary history, and from the beginning of his career he tried to control that reputation by fiercely protecting his public persona. Not a debunking account of Twain's life but refreshingly immune from his relentless image making; Gary Scharnhorst's Twain in His Own Time offers an anecdotal version of Twain's life over which the master spin-doctor had virtually no control.

"Scharnhorst has edited a marvelous volume that presents Mark Twain as his friends knew him, for the good, the genius, and the ugly. The expansive collection begins with a witty and scholarly (in this rare instance not an oxymoron) introduction that serves to beautifully contextualize the life and times of Samuel L. Clemens: This volume is an utter necessity for Twain scholars and researchers and will charm and fascinate a general audience. All current and future Twain scholars owe Professor Scharnhorst an enormous debt of gratitude on his accomplishmentuLaura Skandera Trombley, author, Mark Twain Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years

"Twain in His Own Time is a delicious collection of anecdote and fond, and sometimes not so fond, recollections of Mark Twain: Collectively, these ninety-plus interviews, essays, and reminiscences provide fascinating crosslights on Twainuon his character, his craft, his many moods, and his humor. Individually, each selection offers a snapshot of the writer and the man at virtually every stage of his life."uTom Quirk, author, Mark Twain and Human Nature

Gary Scharnhorst is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Mexico. Coeditor of the journal American Literary Realism and editor every other year of the research annual American Literary Scholarship, he is the author or editor of eighteen, books, most recently Bret Hark: Opening the American Literary West, selected by the Western Literature Association as the Outstanding Book in Western American Literary Criticism for 2000, and Mainly the Truth: Interviews with Mark Twain, 1871-1910.