Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but known to the world as Mark Twain, Keith David narrates this tale of “a printer’s apprentice and a riverboat pilot, a prospector who never struck gold and a Confederate soldier who never fought a battle,” yet whose brilliant work remains a unique and influential part of the American literary landscape.   

It is a story of humble beginnings, a meteoric rise to fame and the burden and tragedy of personal hardships endured. Twain’s story is really that of two men: Sam Clemens, a devoted family man who lost his brother, wife, son and two daughters to tragedies; the provider who had to tour the lecture circuit to make enough money to pull himself out of debt after bad investments left him virtually penniless. And Mark Twain, the astonishingly successful writer who became the enduring voice of a nation, stirring up controversies that exist to this day, and nearly single-handedly inventing American literature.