"Mark Twain - our nation's greatest writer and a national icon. This provocative account will forever change the way we see him. Philip Ashley Fanning's history of the fractious fraternal relationship between Twain and his older brother, Orion Clemens, reveals that Orion's influence on Twain's life and writing was profound." "From Hannibal, Missouri, in the 1830s to Orion's death in Iowa in 1897, Samuel Clemens perpetually and sometimes obsessively defined himself against his older brother's formidable background - a circumstance Twain masked by treating Orion dismissively in his autobiographical writings and letters. Orion was the chief financial and psychological support for the Clemens family following his father's death in 1847. Orion led the way for his younger brother into printing, journalism, and mine speculation, taking Sam out west with him.

It was Orion who served as Sam's first real editor and literary mentor, recognizing and encouraging his younger brother's talents as a writer." "The two had much in common, yet their feelings for one another veered sharply from mutual admiration to mutual disdain and rivalry. Orion was self-effacing, easygoing, humble, and progressive in his politics, while Twain was often ill-tempered, untrusting, and conservative in his views and often portrayed his older brother as a laughingstock and buffoon." "Fanning follows the wavering fortunes of these contentious talents as Twain rose to become a national celebrity and financial success, Orion's finances and self-esteem disintegrated, and Twain's portrayal of his brother became evermore harsh and mocking.

Fanning's account - which draws upon extensive archival sources, unpublished letters between the brothers, and the Mark Twain papers at the University of California, Berkeley - stands as both a biography of a fractious fraternal relationship and a work of scholarship that highlights for the first time the degree to which Orion Clemens shaped Twain's psychic and artistic economy."--Jacket.