Autobiographical Writings: A Penguin Enriched eBook Classic

Mark Twain

May 2012 · Penguin

About this ebook

An intimate look at Mark Twain that only he himself could offer, with added photos, music, video, and more

Enhanced eBook features added by scholar R. Kent Rasmussen to this selection of Mark Twain’s autobiographical writings include:

– Contemporary advertisements for Mark Twain’s autobiographical writings from newspapers around America
– The only existing video of Mark Twain, taken by Thomas Edison’s production company in 1909, soundtracked with the popular contemporary song “In the Sweet Bye and Bye”
– An expansive glossary linked with the text for a richer reading experience

A must-have for all lovers of Mark Twain, this selection opens a rare window onto the writer’s life, particularly his early years. Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel Langhorne Clemens first used the pseudonym Mark Twain while a journalist in Nevada in 1863. When his first major book, The Innocents Abroad, appeared six years later, he began what would become one of the most celebrated and influential careers in American letters. Autobiographical Writings will help readers know the author intimately and appreciate why, a century after his death, he remains so vital and appealing.

About the author

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and died at Redding, Connecticut in 1910. In his person and in his pursuits he was a man of extraordinary contrasts. Although he left school at twelve when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri, and Oxford University. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher. He made fortunes from his writing but toward the end of his life he had to resort to lecture tours to pay his debts. He was hot-tempered, profane, and sentimental—and also pessimistic, cynical, and tortured by self-doubt. His nostalgia helped produce some of his best books. He lives in American letters as a great artist, the writer whom William Dean Howells called “the Lincoln of our literature.”

R. Kent Rasmussen has written and edited eight other books on Mark Twain, including the award-winning Mark Twain A to Z (recently revised as the two-volume Critical Companion to Mark Twain), as well as many books on other subjects. He holds a doctorate in history from UCLA and recently retired from his job as a reference book editor in Southern California.