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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