Mark Twain Died Famous, Not Happy

Many people know that Mark Twain co-wrote The Gilded Age, an 1873 account of the rough and hustling capitalism of the late 19th century. (It wasn’t a good book; most of Twain’s two-dozen-odd books weren’t good books.) What’s less known is that the writer wasn’t merely an observer of America’s rugged free enterprise — he was also an obsessive participant.

And mainly an incompetent one. In his new 1,000-plus-page biography, Mark Twain (May 13, Penguin Press), Ron Chernow writes, “So entangled did Twain become with his investments that at times it was hard to tell whether he was a literary man with business sidelines or a businessman who dabbled in letters.”