Autobiography of Mark Twain

Autobiography of Mark Twain
Published: 2010
Tags: Autobiography, USA, Twain; Mark;, Literary, Autobiography: Literary, Literary studies: fiction; novelists prose writers, Authors; American, BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY, American, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, American - General, English, 19th century, Criticism, 1835-1910, Personal Memoirs, General, Authors; American - 19th century, Literary Criticism, Twain; Mark, Literature - Classics, Biography
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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away--to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his "Final (and Right) Plan" for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion--to "talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment"--meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be "dead, and unaware, and indifferent," and that he was therefore free to speak his "whole frank mind." The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain's works, UC Press is proud to offer for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its entirety and exactly as he left it. This major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.

THE MARK TWAIN PAPERS

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN
VOLUME 1

The Mark Twain Project is an editorial and publishing program of The Bancroft Library, working since 1967 to create a comprehensive critical edition of everything Mark Twain wrote.
This volume is the first one in that edition to be published simultaneously in print and as an electronic text at http://www.marktwainproject.org. The textual commentaries for all Mark Twain texts in this volume are published only there.

THE MARK TWAIN PAPERS

Robert H. Hirst, General Editor
Board of Directors of the Mark Twain Project
Jo Ann Boydston
Laura Cerruti
Don L. Cook
Frederick Crews
Charles B. Faulhaber
Peter E. Hanff
Thomas C. Leonard
Michael Millgate
George A. Starr
G. Thomas Tanselle
Lynne Withey
Contributing Editors for This Volume
Natalia Cecire
Michelle Coleman
George Derk
Christine Hong
Rachel Perez
Leslie Walton

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
MARK
TWAIN
VOLUME 1

HARRIET ELINOR SMITH, EDITOR
Associate Editors
Benjamin Griffin
Victor Fischer
Michael B. Frank
Sharon K. Goetz
Leslie Diane Myrick
A publication of the Mark Twain Project
of The Bancroft Library

Frontispiece: Photograph by Albert Bigelow Paine, 25 June 1906, Upton House, Dublin, New Hampshire

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University of California Press

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University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 Copyright© 2010, 2001 by the Mark Twain Foundation. All Rights Reserved. Transcription, reconstruction, and creation of the texts, introduction, notes, and appendixes Copyright© 2010 by The Regents of the University of California. The Mark Twain Foundation expressly reserves to itself, its successors and assigns, all dramatization rights in every medium, including without limitation, stage, radio, television, motion picture, and public reading rights, in and to the Autobiography of Mark Twain and all other texts by Mark Twain in copyright to the Mark Twain Foundation.

All texts by Mark Twain in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 have been published previously, by permission of the Mark Twain Foundation, in the Mark Twain Project’s Microfilm Edition of Mark Twain’s Literary Manuscripts Available in the Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley (Berkeley: The Bancroft Library, 2001), and some texts have been published previously in one or more of the following: Albert Bigelow Paine, editor, Mark Twain’s Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924); Bernard DeVoto, editor, Mark Twain in Eruption (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940); Charles Neider, editor, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Including Chapters Now Published for the First Time (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959). Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are reproduced from original documents in the Mark Twain Papers of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

MARK TWAIN PROJECT® is a registered trademark of The Regents of the University of California in the United States and the European Community.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Twain, Mark, 1835–1910

[Autobiography]

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 / editor: Harriet Elinor Smith;
associate editors: Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick

    p. cm. — (The Mark Twain Papers)

“A publication of the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library.”

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-520-26719-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Twain, Mark, 1835–1910. 2.