“Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens works well for the general reader.”
“Serves up a balanced literary biography of a crowded life. . . . A solid contribution to literary interpretation of the man who infused American literature with what has been called ‘tragic laughter.’”
"Loving’s [is] among the most recent runs at Twain, and bids fair, as they used to say, to be a standard life."
“Loving writes well and fluidly, sometimes elegantly, with considerable acumen and critical sympathy. . . . If you’re looking for a strong, readable, authoritative, perceptive biography in which Mark Twain and his world come alive, you couldn’t do much better than this one.”
“Mark Twain:The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens draws more deeply on its subject’s psychological underpinnings than [authors] were able to do more than a generation ago.”
“A fresh interpretive perspective. . . . Readers will value this portrait of a peripatetic genius traversing a wide swath of American culture.”
“A welcome addition to the expansive body of literature about America’s most beloved humorist. . . . Loving’s take on Twain’s life will create a new generation of Twain admirers and rekindle the interest of readers already familiar with his works.”
“Although Loving's book tells Twain's story in chronological order, and tells it well, at crucial points it will expand its frame to show how certain themes — slavery, war, a guilty conscience, the unreliability of father figures, a pessimistic naturalism — appear, reappear and develop in Twain's life and work. . . . I found Loving's biography to be provocative and well-reasoned.”
“Another carefully researched, vividly written work, Loving's biography conducts the reader on a briskly paced ride through Twain's packed life. There are many wonderful books examining various aspects of the author's personality and phases of his life, but this comes tantalizingly close to filling the need for an authoritative, comprehensive, lively and dependable single-volume biography.”
“Crisply written, carefully documented. . . . Loving provides a fresh perspective thanks to his interpretation of new archival materials. . . . An excellent overview that clarifies the complicated trajectory of Twain’s life and career. Less experienced readers will appreciate Loving’s concise, vibrant style, and scholars will value his detailed notes.”
“In the wake of two excellent Twain biographies published in the aughts . . . Jerome Loving had a lot of nerve to undertake yet another. But Loving's ‘Mark Twain’ not only holds its own with those predecessors; in some ways, it surpasses them. . . . Never losing sight of the main reason we want to read about Twain -- his literary genius -- Loving brings some unjustly neglected works to the reader's attention.”
“Jerome Loving follows the well-known story of Twain’s life with a nice edging of subversive wit and a focus on one large and troubling question. How, he asks, can a writer have achieved such eminence as Twain’s with such a small number of incontrovertibly great works?”
“Jerome Loving, who has written influential biographies of Walt Whitman and Theodore Dreiser, puts the focus of ‘Mark Twain: the Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens’ exactly where it belongs. . . . Loving sticks to the verifiable facts and to what he can reasonably infer from them. The result ably serves any reader who wants to understand the man behind Huck Finn.”
“Loving’s short, sharply focused chapters give the effect of expertly framed snapshots - a form peculiarly suitable for an episodic life full of incident, dramatic moments and changes of fortune.”
“Never fawning or apologetic, he sees Twain whole, and as a child of the Gilded Age that he in turn memorialized in literature . . . This could be the biography of the season.”
“No other Clemens biography is as packed with historical context and with facts about the author’s life and work.”
“Sheds new light on the wit, pathos and tragedy of the famed author.”
“The most scholarly and thorough, offering fresh insight.”
“The real pleasure in reading Jerome Loving’s excellent biography is less the literary criticism than the jaunts—first across young America with a young Twain, and then overseas as he grows more established.”
“Will offer fans interesting glimpses into Clemens' life in short, vignette chapters that seem perfectly designed for bedtime reading. . . . Adds to both our knowledge of the man and our ability to read his work with a clearer picture of both the times during which he wrote and the life that he lived.”
“Loving’s ability to weave recent scholarship and older literary history into a narrative . . . is impressive, particularly since he does so without ever losing sight of the exceptional individual at the center of the story.”
“Very probably the best of the many Mark Twain biographies…one that should be preeminent for quite a long time.”—Frederick Crews author of Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays
“This biography offers irresistibly concise and beautifully paced chapters that will take readers through this author's amazing life and work—its humor its pathos and its tragedy—in brisk and compelling fashion.”—Ed Folsom author of Walt Whitman's Native Representations
“There has definitely never been a Twain biography so comprehensive in scope and so sagaciously opinionative.”—Alan Gribben author of Mark Twain's Library: A Reconstruction, and co-founder of Mark Twain Circle of America
