John Isaac Jones's new biographical novel on Samuel Langhorne Clemens, A K A Mark Twain, brings the fascinating life of America's most famous humorist to you in vivid, captivating detail.His time - 1840s-1910 America. Westward movement begins; the trail of tears; telegraph is invented; California gold rush; War between the States; Lincoln assassinated; the golden spike; Custer massacred; invention of electric light, the telephone and the automobile; the Spanish American war; the tumultuous presidency of Teddy Roosevelt; events leading to WWI.His loves - His strait-laced, highly-religious mother Jane who vowed he was "born to be hanged!"; Laura Hawkins, his childhood sweetheart whom he was unable to commit to; Ina Coolbrith, the beautiful California poetess and lover who vowed to hold him; his beloved wife Olivia who urged him to become "a serious writer;" his oldest daughter Susan whom he worshipped from the day she was born until the day of her death.His genius - Samuel Langhorne Clemens, news reporter, steamboat pilot, gold miner, lecturer, world-traveler, adventurer, author of the classic Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books; the first man to circumnavigate the world on a steamship; singlehandedly invented the travelogue genre when he wrote Innocents Abroad ; later books, including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , Roughing it , Life of the Mississippi and the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County , earned him the title "The father of American literature."