Dangerous WaterDangerous Water
a Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain
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Book, 1999
Current format, Book, 1999, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 1999
Current format, Book, 1999, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsDescribes how the author's personality and literary works were shaped by a Hannibal, Missouri childhood that included violence, the culture of slavery, and fierce religion
A refreshingly imaginative recreation of Samual Clemens’ boyhood years in Hannibal and how he drew on these years for the rest of his life as he wrote under the name of Mark Twain.
Twain was a distinctly American writer. From age ten when he boarded his first Mississippi steamer to his first encounter with a traveling “mesmerizer” (from which Twain gained a penchant for acting and a flair for spectacle); from the brooding sense of guilt and fear of eternal damnation inculcated into him at church to the superstitions and stories of witchcraft he learned from the Blacks on his farm, Twain was shaped by the people of Hannibal, Missouri and by a distinctly American culture.Interwoven between Twain’s childhood experiences are various themes of nature expressed in beautifully written passages that evoke scenes like those of the Mississippi River as it flows through Hannibal and of the mysterious, foreboding cave in which Twain used to play.During his childhood, Mark Twain learned to negotiate the “dangerous waters” of experience and turn trials into humorous stories that shaped the American literary tradition.
A refreshingly imaginative recreation of Samual Clemens’ boyhood years in Hannibal and how he drew on these years for the rest of his life as he wrote under the name of Mark Twain.
Twain was a distinctly American writer. From age ten when he boarded his first Mississippi steamer to his first encounter with a traveling “mesmerizer” (from which Twain gained a penchant for acting and a flair for spectacle); from the brooding sense of guilt and fear of eternal damnation inculcated into him at church to the superstitions and stories of witchcraft he learned from the Blacks on his farm, Twain was shaped by the people of Hannibal, Missouri and by a distinctly American culture.Interwoven between Twain’s childhood experiences are various themes of nature expressed in beautifully written passages that evoke scenes like those of the Mississippi River as it flows through Hannibal and of the mysterious, foreboding cave in which Twain used to play.During his childhood, Mark Twain learned to negotiate the “dangerous waters” of experience and turn trials into humorous stories that shaped the American literary tradition.
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- New York : Basic Books, c1999.
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