Some say the best biography or memoirs ever written were the memoirs of Ulysses S Grant. It is excellent; I've read it twice over the last few years and even put together an interactive project for middle school students based on Grant's memoirs.
In preparation for Mark Twain's autobiography, volume one which has just been published, I am reading Ron Powers'biography of Twain, c. 2005. It is excellent.
I never enjoyed reading Twain's works when I was in high school and it may be because I never "knew" him or his background. Now, after completing the first twelve chapters of the Powers' biography, I am hooked. I can't wait to go back and read (and re-read) some of Twain's works. I look forward to his autobiography, though I u derstand it's a difficult read.
What makes Twain's story particularly interesting is the contemporary relationship and the geographic relationship between Ulysses S Grant and Mark Twain.
They spent much of their young lives on the Mississippi or the rivers on the east draining into the Mississippi.
They both joined the army before the Civil War, but whereas one went on to become a famous general, the other went AWOL.
Throughout the Powers' biography, there are references to the war and to General Grant.
In July,1863, General Grant seized Vicksburg, a turning point in the war. Meanwhile Mark Twain was returning to Carson City, Nevada, following a remarkable and expensive vacation in San Francisco. Twain had followed his older brother out west. His brother had been appointed the secretary (the president's representative) of the Nevada Territory by President Abraham Lincoln and Mark would his unofficial aide.
The rest, of course, is history.
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