Author of latest best-selling Twain biography wraps up book tour in Hannibal

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Author Ron Chernow, who has penned numerous biographies on historic Americans, spoke at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum Sunday to discuss his latest work, “Mark Twain”.

Chernow penned the 2004 biography on Alexander Hamilton, which went on to win the inaugural George Washington Book Prize for early American history and was a nominee for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. In 2015, the book was adapted into the musical Hamilton by playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. The stage production went on to win numerous accolades, including 11 Tony Awards.

Chernow also won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the 2011 American History Book Prize for his 2010 book Washington: A Life. 

So, why did Chernow decide to tackle Twain?

“Mark Twain was the largest personality that American literature has produced, and it was really an ideal story because this story has an unusual amount of literary triumph and personal tragedy,” Chernow said. “It has all the light and shadow that one could possibly want in a biography.

“We tend to think of Mark Twain as the quintessential American. I was surprised to find in his notebook, he wrote a line, I am not an American. I am the American. Now, that sounds rather arrogant, but I think that it’s probably true. And I kept feeling as I was writing this book that Mark Twain condensed in one life, in one person, both the best and the worst of our national character.”

He also talked about how Twain would approach today’s politics.

“It drove him crazy when people would say, my country, right or wrong. He said we should support our country always, but our government only when it deserves it,” Chernow said. “He had wonderful things to say about the press. He said, irreverence is the champion of liberty and its surest guarantee.

“And he also warned us about the dangers of hyperpartisanship. He made the statement that if the Democrats put the multiplication table in their platform, the Republicans would vote it down in the next election. Doesn’t that sound familiar? You know, so I think that he continues, across the span of a hundred years, to talk to us about all sorts of issues that remain relevant in American life today.”

Chernow said the event felt very poetic as Hannibal was the last stop on a book tour that took him coast to coast to 15 cities across the United States.

More than 100 people attended the event at the Mark Twain Museum Gallery at 120 North Main. Visitors came from as far as Texas, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and the surrounding area. Chernow spoke for 40 minutes then fielded questions from the crowd. Hannibal Mayor Darrell McCoy presented him with the key to the City of Hannibal and Mark Twain performer Richard Garey introduced him.