‘Hamilton’ author Ron Chernow’s new book takes on an icon of American letters, Mark Twain

NEW YORK (AP) — Historian Ron Chernow’s latest work may surprise readers who know him best for the book which inspired the musical “Hamilton” and for his biographies of George Washington and Ulysses Grant.

The 1,200-page “Mark Twain” will be published next week. It’s Chernow’s first release since his Grant biography came out in 2017, and the first time he has taken on a literary writer after a career defined by celebrated books about business leaders (John D. Rockefeller, the Morgan dynasty)...