Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader’s Edition

Mark Twain, Benjamin Griffin

University of California Press, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 440 pages

The year 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain’s works, UC Press published Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, the first of a projected three-volume edition of the complete, uncensored autobiography. The book became an immediate bestseller and was hailed as the capstone of the life’s work of America’s favorite author.

This Reader’s Edition, a portable paperback in larger type, republishes the text of the hardcover Autobiography in a form that is convenient for the general reader, without the editorial explanatory notes. It includes a brief introduction describing the evolution of Mark Twain’s ideas about writing his autobiography, as well as a chronology of his life, brief family biographies, and an excerpt from the forthcoming Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2—a controversial but characteristically humorous attack on Christian doctrine.

Contents

• An Early Attempt: 21
• The Latest Attempt: 43
• Autobiographical Dictations JanuaryMarch 1906: 83
• Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations: 369
• A Brief Chronology: 397
• Excerpt from Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 2: 411

About the author

Mark Twain was born Samuel L. Clemens in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He worked as a printer, and then became a steamboat pilot. He traveled throughout the West, writing humorous sketches for newspapers. In 1865, he wrote the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which was very well received. He then began a career as a humorous travel writer and lecturer, publishing The Innocents Abroad in 1869, Roughing It in 1872, and, Gilded Age in 1873, which was co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner. His best-known works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mississippi Writing: Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader’s Edition; Volume 1 of Autobiography of Mark Twain, Harriet Elinor Smith; Mark Twain papers, Mark Twain
• Authors: Mark Twain, Benjamin Griffin
• Editors: Harriet E. Smith, Benjamin Griffin
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2010
• ISBN: 0520272250, 9780520272255
• Length: 440 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures; Biography & Autobiography / Memoirs; Literary Criticism / American / General; Literary Criticism / General