Justin Kaplan

An anecdotal account of two people coming of age in privileged New York society is a dual memoir that traces the writing couple's careers in publishing, their married life, experiences in apartment living, and challenges as parents as they witness the social revolutions, McCarthyism, and Cold War of the second half of the twentieth century. Reprint.

Winner of the National Book Award"Whitman emerges from this biography alive and kicking--hugely human, enormously attractive." --NewsweekA moving, penetrating, sharply focused portrait of America's greatest poet--his genius, his passions, his androgynous sensibility--an exuberant life entwined with the turbulent history of mid-nineteenth century America. In vivid detail, Justin Kaplan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, examines the mysterious selves of this enigmatic man whose bold voice of joy and sexual liberation embraced a growing nation. . . and exposes the quintessential Whitman, that perfect poet whose astonishing verse made "words sing, dance, kiss, copulate" for an entire world to hear.

As delightful and playful as it is profound and serious, "The Language of Names" is an absolute original -- a fascinating book that reveals us to ourselves, that demonstrates the endless variety of ways in which names shape our daily lives. Drawing on social and literary history, psychology and anthropology, anecdotes, and life stories, biographer Justin Kaplan and novelist Anne Bernays have written a fascinating account of names and naming in contemporary society that touches on class structure, ethnic and religious practices, manners, and everyday life. Graceful, eloquent, and richly informed, "The Language of Names" explores and illuminates our favorite subject -- ourselves.

Mark Twain, the American comic genius who portrayed, named, and in part exemplified America's "Gilded Age," comes alive in Justin Kaplan's extraordinary biography. With brilliant immediacy, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain brings to life a towering literary figure whose dual persona symbolized the emerging American conflict between down-to-earth morality and freewheeling ambition. As Mark Twain, he was the Mississippi riverboat pilot, the satirist with a fiery hatred of pretension, and the author of such classics as Tom Sawyer andHuckleberry Finn. As Mr. Clemens, he was the star who married an heiress, built a palatial estate, threw away fortunes on harebrained financial schemes, and lived the extravagant life that Mark Twain despised. Kaplan effectively portrays the triumphant-tragic man whose achievements and failures, laughter and anger, reflect a crucial generation in our past as well as his own dark, divided, and remarkably contemporary spirit. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain brilliantly conveys this towering literary figure who was himself a symbol of the peculiarly American conflict between moral scrutiny and the drive to succeed. Mr. Clemens lived the Gilded Life that Mark Twain despised. The merging and fragmenting of these and other identities, as the biography unfolds, results in a magnificent projection of the whole man; the great comic spirit; and the exuberant, tragic human being, who, his friend William Dean Howells said, was "sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."