Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 - (Mark Twain Papers)

About the Book

"A publication of the Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library."

Book Synopsis

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 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, and brief family biographies.

From the Back Cover

"Mark Twain dictated much of this book--now it is a book at last--from a big rumpled bed. Reading it is a bit like climbing in there with him."--Roy Blount, Jr.

"To say that the editors have done an extremely good job is a little like saying the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel does a good job of keeping the rain off the Pope's head. It is true but it doesn't give even a whiff of the grandeur of the thing."--Robert D. Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire

"Mark Twain, always so blithely ahead of his time, has just outdone himself: he's brought us an Autobiography from beyond the grave: a hundred-year-old relic that yet manages to accomplish something new. It anticipates the Cubism just taking form in Samuel Clemens's last years, by exploding the confines of orderliness, sequence, the dutiful march of this-then-that. In so doing, it gives us not simply Mark Twain's life--that is the prosaic work of biographers--but the ways in which he thought of his life: in all the fragmented recollection, distraction, creation, revision and dreaming that make up the true, divinely jumbled devices we all use to recapture experience and feeling. If this prodigious and prodigal pastiche were a machine, it would be the Paige typesetter--except that it works."--Ron Powers, author of Mark Twain: A Life

Review Quotes

"A major achevement."-- "Choice" (4/20/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"Brimming with Twain's humor, ideas and opinions, this is a book for anyone interested in the writer's work and life."-- "Curledup.com" (1/12/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"His ''whole frank mind, ' sharp and funny, is seared onto every page. A"-- "Entertainment Weekly" (11/10/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Promises a no-holds barred perspective on Twain's life, and will be rich with rambunctious, uncompromising opinions."-- "Herald Scotland" (7/19/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Pure Twain at his typically discursive, rambling, and droll. . . . The bard of Hannibal still has much to say."-- "American Heritage" (9/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"With the uncensored Twain finally here, we're the furthest thing from indifferent."-- "Time Magazine" (9/20/2010 12:00:00 AM)

New-- "New York Times Book Review" (4/27/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"Dip into the first enormous volume of Twain's autobiography that he had decreed should not appear until 100 years after his death. And Twain will begin to seem strange again, alluring and still astonishing, but less sure-footed, and at times both puzzled and puzzling in ways that still resonate with us, though not the ways we might expect."-- "New York Times" (9/17/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Mission accomplished, Mr. Clemens."--Roger Boylan "Boston Review" (11/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Now, common sense, at last. We have, emblazoned big as life on the paperback cover underneath Twain's photo . . . the words 'Reader's Edition.' The very idea of it is a winner. . . . It is less academically punctilious but indeed more reader-friendly."-- "Buffalo News" (4/29/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"Smith and her companion editors have accomplished a herculean task. . . . A more accurately arranged collection than any earlier edition."-- "American Literary Realism" (8/17/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"Sometimes the autobiography seems Twain's letter to posterity. At other times, reading it feels like eavesdropping on a conversation he is having with himself. . . . This first installment of Twain's autobiography brings us closer to all of him than we have ever come before."-- "New York Review Of Books" (2/24/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"The bestseller chart is awash with memoirs -- but none offer the extreme reading of the Autobiography of Mark Twain."--Debra Craine "The Times" (10/18/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"This is a book for dipping, not plunging. Read, as Twain might put it, until interest pales, and then jump. It feels like a form of time travel."-- "New York Times/The Opinion Pages" (11/27/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"This is a book to treasure for all friends of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn."-- "Acadiana Lifestyle Magazine" (12/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Twain generously provides the 21st century aficionado a marvelous read. His crystalline humor and expansive range are a continuous source of delight and awe. . . . [He] has given us 'an astonishment' in his autobiography with his final, beautifully unorganized genius and intemperate thoughts. Pull up a chair and revel."-- "Los Angeles Times Book Review" (11/14/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Twain would approve!"-- "Bookideas.com" (12/29/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Twain's autobiography, finally available after a century, is a garrulous outpouring--and every word beguiles."-- "Wall Street Journal" (11/13/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Twain's writing here is electric, alternately moving and hilarious. He couldn't write a ho-hum sentence."-- "Library Journal" (9/15/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"Twian's 'Final Plan' has been released in a truly spectacular first volume of his posthumous 'Autobiography'."--Vitali Vitaliev "Engineering & Technology" (2/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Harriet Elinor Smith is an editor at the Mark Twain Project, which is housed within the Mark Twain Papers, the world's largest archive of primary materials by this major American writer. Under the direction of General Editor Robert H. Hirst, the Project's editors are producing the first comprehensive edition of all of Mark Twain's writings.