Mark Twain's America

Bernard DeVoto (1897-1955) is one of the great poets of American history; he was a man who allowed the American land to shape his sweeping narratives. This overlooked book, first published in 1932, celebrates the places Mark Twain knew and wrote about, and it celebrates as well Twain's humor and disenchantment. "Twain laughs," writes DeVoto, "and, for the first time, American literature possesses tragic laughter." The tragedy comes, of course, from the darker moments of the continent's conquest, to several of which Twain was an unflinching witness. To read DeVoto is to see with Twain's own eyes the great rivers, mining camps, mountains, and forests of America a century ago.