The Man Who Was Mark Twain: Images and Ideologies.

CARDWELL, Guy.

Item Number: 128215

New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1991.

First edition, advance review copy of Cardwell’s fresh appraisal of Twain’s life and writings. Octavo, original half cloth. With the publisher’s Advance Review Copy slip laid in. From the library of William Safire, although not marked. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and supported him again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket illustration by Carroll Beckwith.

"Briskly written in a clear, direct, and forceful style, this book makes definitive determinations about the nature of Mark Twain as both a personality and a writer (James M. Cox, Dartmouth College).