Is Mark Twain the best author that the US has ever had?

Mark Twain — the pen name of author Samuel Clemens — is the great poet of America's longest river, while his quotes on politics and human nature enjoy a constant half-life as staples among speechmakers. His deceptively relaxed style has had a profound influence on generations of American writers. read more

Clemens and the other “starchy boys,” as he once described his fellow riverboat pilots in a letter to his wife, had no particular use for this nonunion man, but Clemens did envy what he later recalled to be Sellers’s delicious pen name, Mark Twain. read more