Charles Neider

#2

"Antarctica is the coldest and driest continent on Earth - a place for adventure and a key area for global science. Research conducted there has received increasing international attention due to concerns over destruction of the ozone layer and the problem of global warming and melting ice shelves. This dramatically illustrated new book brings together an international group of leading Antarctic scientists to explain why the Antarctic is so central to understanding the history and potential fate of our planet. It introduces the beauty of the world's greatest wilderness, its remarkable attributes and the global importance of the international science done there. Spanning topics from marine biology to space science this book is an accessible overview for anyone interested in the Antarctic and its science and governance."--pub. desc.

#3

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain, as he was better known, was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. His father ran a dry goods and grocery store, practiced law, and involved himself in local politics after the family's move to Hannibal, Missouri, when Sam was four years old.Hannibal seems to have been a good place for a boy to grow up. Sam was entranced by the Mississippi River and enjoyed both the barges and the people who traveled on them. When Sam was just eleven his father died and Sam went to work for his brother at the Hannibal Journal first as a printer's apprentice and later a compositor. While still in his teens Sam went on the road as an itinerant printer. In 1857 he conceived a plan to seek his fortune in South America but on the way he met a steamboat captain, Horace Bixby who took him on as a cub riverboat pilot and taught him until he acquired his own license.This enjoyable style of life, which Twain always spoke of later with special warmth, was ended by the Civil War. Twain went West with his brother Orion to prospect in Nevada but in 1862 joined the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, a paper to which he had already begun submitting his work. Later Twain went to California and submitted "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" to the New York Saturday Press.By 1871 Twain had published Innocents Abroad and had married Olivia Langdon, the sister of a friend from a socially-prominent New York City family. He and his wife moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where they made their family home for the next 20 years.Books that he wrote in Hartford confirmed his popular reputation but despite their success Twain found himself in financial difficulty primarily because of his investments in the Paige typesetting business as well as his own publishing company. Eventually Twain was forced to declare bankruptcy.Twain's last major books were successful commercially but they also reflected his increasing pessimism. His satire became at times more biting and mean-spirited than humorous. Despite the downturn in Twain's outlook in later life and despite the unevenness of much of his work, he remains one of the major writers of the American nineteenth century, and one who has been enormously influential on subsequent writers.Get to know the man who revolutionized American literature in this three-volume biography. World Digital Library also offers eBook editions of Mark Twain’s works for your reading enjoyment.