Skip to main content
Meetings
search search search search search search
search
Home

MAP IT

mapit icon close icon

Ron Chernow



Unveiling the Life of Mark Twain: A Portrait of America's Literary Icon

May 15, 2025. 7:00 p.m.

In Mark Twain, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the fascinating life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature. Before he was Mark Twain, he was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 and spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi.


After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. His madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior.


Drawing on Twain’s archives, Chernow captures the person whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Mark Twain is a moving tribute to the talent and humanity of America’s first and most influential literary celebrity. 


Chernow is the prizewinning author of seven books including Grant and Alexander Hamilton, the inspiration for the Broadway musical. He is one of only three living biographers to have won the Gold Medal for Biography of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  

CONTACT

600 I (Eye) St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

12-175

Nearby Favorites

washington dc

TripZero: Housing for Sustainable Events

Run a delightfully sustainable event. Allow TripZero to source your ev...

VIEW DETAILS

SPONSORED

washington dc

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center is an iconic, la...

VIEW DETAILS

SPONSORED

washington dc

Visit National Harbor

Rising from the banks of the historic Potomac River and just minutes f...

VIEW DETAILS

SPONSORED

Partner Content