Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“In the late 19th century, a letter addressed to ‘Mark Twain, God Knows Where’ was delivered to him. That was celebrity before there existed the supposedly indispensable mechanisms of celebrity — broadcasting and other nation-saturating mass media. Twain, writes Ron Chernow in his just-published 1,033-page biography, erased the paradigm of the author as a contemplative, cloistered being. Twain ‘thrust himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, capturing the wild, uproarious energy throbbing in the heartland.’ He ‘fairly invented our celebrity culture, seemingly anticipating today’s world of social analysts and influencers.’ Samuel Langhorne Clemens was initially, and ever after as Mark Twain, a writer. But after the huge success of the first of his many books and pamphlets, ‘The Innocents Abroad’ (1869), it was as a platform performer, with his deadpan, hands-in-trouser-pockets drollery, that he achieved acclaim in a country smitten by verbal virtuosity and the humor of rhetorical and other extravagances.” (05/14/25)