Mark TwainThe complex and fascinating life of \"the Father of American Literature\" (William Faulkner), as told by a Pulitzer prizewinning biographer Born in 1835, the man who would become America's first, and most influen tial, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Mark Twain went west and accepted a job at the local newspaper, writing dis