On The American Vernacular

In his prime, a century after the Declaration of Independence, Twain was a Yankee original who rendered the vocabulary and tone of the American vernacular, previously despised, in a way that was neither parody, nor caricature, but literature.

• The voice of America: Through his novels – and heroes – Mark Twain was indisputably the United States’s first literary superstar. Ron Powers examines his life and work in an exhilarating new biography, says Robert McCrum