Gary Scharnhorst is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico. He is the author or editor of fifty books, including Mark Twain on Potholes and Politics: Letters to the Editor. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
"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."--Publishers Weekly
"The final volume of Gary Scharnhorst's epic biography of Mark
Twain brings new insight and clarity to Twain's most controversial
and misunderstood period. Chronicling the twenty years that saw
Twain grapple with seemingly unrelenting personal and professional
disaster, The Life of Mark Twain: The Final Years, 1891-1910 dives
deep into the historical record, persistently distinguishing fact
from long-held academic hearsay, to reveal a fresh, coherent, and
wholly substantive understanding of the last two decades of Twain's
life. But be warned: Scharnhorst's portrait is at times unsettling.
The net result, however, is arguably the most critically balanced
and information-rich scholarly biography of Mark Twain yet
produced."--Joseph Csicsila, Eastern Michigan University, author of
Heretical Fictions: Religion in the Literature of Mark Twain
"Among (by my count) nearly one hundred biographies and memoirs,
Gary Scharnhorst's volumes have managed what perhaps no other
biography has, piecing together a narrative of Samuel L. Clemens's
life more fully realized, but not fulsomely so, than all the rest.
Not hagiography but neither a hit job nor habitual psychologizing,
Scharnhorst's portrait of the final years of Clemens in particular
does not shy away from Sam's bad temper, mean-spirited and petty
and vengeful at times, to provide contrast with his fundamental
habit of generosity, always ready to raise money for worthy causes,
harboring a Joan of Arc idealism to temper his satiric view of the
damned human race. . . . Scharnhorst's three-volume effort may be
the closest view we ever can have of the cultural comet called Mark
Twain."--James E. Caron, author of Satire as Comic Public Sphere:
Postmodern "Truthiness" as Civic Engagement
"Gary Scharnhorst's The Life of Mark Twain: The Final Years,
1891-1910 examines the personal, social, and financial twists and
turns of Twain's life in extraordinary detail. Whether he is
clarifying the contested particulars of Twain's business
relationships, unraveling his personal entanglements, rehearsing
his travel schedules, or simply listing his dinner companions,
Scharnhorst offers us the most comprehensive look ever at the
packed, complex life of this icon of American letters. Its
impeccable scholarship destines The Life of Mark Twain: The Final
Years to be scholars' go-to information source for decades."--Susan
K. Harris, President, Mark Twain Circle of America, and author of
Mark Twain, the World, and Me
"Mark Twain spent much of his energy during the final twenty years
of his life promoting an image of himself and of the Clemens family
that does not square with reality. Gary Scharnhorst is the first
Twain biographer to give us an unvarnished, comprehensive view of
this heart-wrenching chapter in the life of America's favorite
writer and public personality. Twain's final twenty years were
filled with tragedy and triumph, and Scharnhorst walks us through
every step of the journey with an unwavering commitment to fact.
Volume III of The Life of Mark Twain presents the culmination of a
miraculous career, and it is itself the culmination of a masterful
work of scholarship."--Henry B. Wonham, author of Mark Twain and
the Art of the Tall Tale
"Scharnhorst has given us a magnificent conclusion to his
definitive biography. Like the preceding two volumes, the
scholarship is astonishingly vast as well as precise, offering new
insights and correcting a number of myths about America's greatest
writer. It is the biography to depend upon, and it also makes
splendid reading, garnished with humor and wit befitting the life
of the extraordinary man it reveals."--Jeanne Campbell Reesman,
University of Texas-San Antonio, author of Jack London's Racial
Lives: A Critical Biography
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