MARK TWAIN AND THE GILDED AGE
Popular author Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) wrote acerbically about the excesses of the Gilded Age in his novel of that name written with Charles Dudley Warner and published in 1873 (inset). No one knew the meretricious lure of the era better than Twain, who succumbed to a get-rich-quick scheme that led him to the brink of bankruptcy. Photo: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Book: Newberry Library.