The Life of Mark Twain: The Final Years 1891–1910

Scharnhorst (Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews), an English professor at the University of New Mexico, concludes his three-volume biography of Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), aka Mark Twain, with a fantastic account of the last two decades of the author’s life. Scharnhorst picks up in June 1891 as Twain and his family traveled to Europe, a time when even the author didn’t know “how deeply he was in debt” after an unsuccessful publishing venture. During his time abroad, Twain wrote a sequel to Tom Sawyer and met with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Oscar Wilde. But his international celebrity was no shield to devastating personal losses: his eldest daughter Susy died in 1896 from spinal meningitis, the “most traumatic event” in his life, and his wife, Livy, died a few years later. Scharnhorst conveys Twain’s grief in sharp detail, and captures Twain’s political engagement near the end of his life, too: in 1904, he campaigned against Belgium’s King Leopold II’s exploitation of the people of Congo, efforts consistent with his prior support of women’s suffrage and his outspokenness against racism. Scharnhorst uses exhaustive research and granular detail to great effect, creating a fantastic portrait of his subject. This coda to a well-lived life is a stunner. (Mar.)