The Autobiography of Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Jan 2011 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

“A book filled with richness of humor and tragedy of disappointment and triumph, of sweetness and bitterness, and all in that unsurpassed American prose.”—New York Herald Tribune Book Review

Mark Twain was a figure larger than life: massive in talent, eruptive in temperament, unpredictable in his actions. He crafted stories of heroism, adventure, tragedy, and comedy that reflected the changing America of the time, and he tells his own story with the same flair he brought to his fiction. Writing this autobiography on his deathbed, Twain vowed to be “free and frank and unembarrassed” in the recounting of his life and his experiences.

With an introduction by noted scholar Charles Neider, and featuring sixteen pages of photographs, this edition was the first to arrange Twain's autobiographical writings in chronological order, and it presents a man who was more than a match for the expanding America of riverboats, gold rushes, and the vast westward movement that provided the material for his beloved novels.

Ratings and reviews

The "about the author" says editor died in 2001. Well Clemens instructions were that the FULL autobiography should not be published until he had been dead 100 years - ie 2010. That means this is the version first published circa 1910. Google books offers an edition that explicitly says it is the 2010 version. And it costs $4 times as much as this version. I am sure the copyright has expired on the 1910 version, and, if people look hard enough, they can find a place to download if for free. I suspect the 2010 version should be free, as well. Well, that is capitalism for you. I enjoyed reading the 1910 version in college, 4 decades ago. I am not giving this five stars, because (1) copyright has expired, so it should be free (2) I am annoyed that the blurb does not make clear this is not the full uncensored 2010 version

About the author

Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910.