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Article: `Mark Twain,' premiering Monday and Tuesday nights on PBS.(The Dallas Morning News)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- January 11, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The crisply efficient pen name is a boatsman's term for two fathoms. His given name is simply a long drink of water.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who first became Mark Twain in a Feb. 3, 1863, article he wrote for a Virginia City, Nev., newspaper, has long been a legendary figure by either moniker. But Ken Burns' four-hour look at his 75-year life is replete with revelations large and small.
He first and foremost was a writer of unmatched distinction, a "prodigious noticer" in the words of biographer Ron Powers. Mark Twain is richly verbal in that respect, beginning with its subject's tongue-in-cheek take on creativity in the program's opening minute.
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