Autobiography of Mark Twain

September 7, 2015
This third and final volume of Twain's half-million-word autobiography begins with an amusing reminiscence about a rascally jewelry salesman, dictated in 1907, and ends with a wail of anguish over the tragic death of his daughter, Jean, in 1909. In between, there occur all manner of engrossing events and experiences, including Twain's receipt of an honorary degree from Oxford University, employment of a man masquerading as a housemaid, luncheon with George Bernard Shaw, travels abroad to England and Bermuda, and audiences with Andrew Carnegie and other famous personalities of the day. Twain recalls his twilight years' main events in roughly chronological order, but each serves as a touchstone for digressions and reveries on experiences described in his autobiography's two earlier volumes. Twain's expansiveness occasionally deflates into numbing levels of detail, but he is usually as sharp and witty here as he in his fiction, particularly when gleefully goring his favorite bête noir, President Theodore Roosevelt. Life, in Twain's opinion, is a "procession of episodes and experiences which seem large when they happen, but which diminish to trivialities as soon as we get perspective upon them." This fascinating volume gives lie to that assertion, and closes the book on the remarkable life of one of America's most outstanding literary talents. With extensive scholarly annotations. B+w photos.

September 30, 2013
Several chapters into this sprawling volume, Mark Twain (“Sam,” to his friends) professes: “I can say now what I could not say while alive—things which it would shock people to hear.” Though not quite shocking, these rambling reminiscences (spanning 1860 to 1906, when Twain began dictating them) offer tart appraisals of matters personal (“In the early days I liked Bret Harte . . . but by and by I got over it”), political (“ represents what the American gentleman ought not to be, and does it as clearly, intelligibly, and exhaustively as he represents what the American gentleman is”), and universal (“The political and commercial morals of the United States of America are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet”). The detailed and digressive narrative ping-pongs back and forth between the past and present, covering incidents including: Twain negotiating the publication of Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs; his youthful interest in mesmerism; the San Francisco earthquake of 1906; and swindles he endured from publishers. Twain traveled extensively and befriended many luminaries, and his colorful experiences give the book the same Dickensian scope as the first volume, and presents a vivid picture of America in the 19th century and Twain’s indelible mark on it. 50 b&w photos.

Starred review from July 1, 2013
In which the great American author, aided by his scholarly editors, continues to spin out a great yarn covering his long life. In the year of his birth, writes Twain, John Marshall, the noted jurist and chief justice of the Supreme Court, died. A collection was taken up among lawyers to erect a statue to him, but then "a prodigious new event of some kind or other suddenly absorbed the whole nation and drove the matter of the monument out of everybody's mind." The money sat in a bank account for half a century collecting interest, and suddenly, in 1883 or so, it was rediscovered and used to build the memorial that now stands in the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. The statue is a material fact, but it is Twain's storytelling that makes it come alive. Having written despairingly of the human race, and especially of its more murderous representatives, such as Belgium's King Leopold, he takes the rare fact of honest politicians and fiduciaries as a tonic: "It takes the bitter taste out of my mouth to recall that beautiful incident." Twain emerges as an unflinching social critic with a long list of targets, including the robber barons of his day and imperialist militarists like Leonard Wood. Yet, in this most personal of works, Twain also reserves plenty of spite for miscreant publishers: "Webster kept back a book of mine, 'A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, ' as long as he could, and finally published it so surreptitiously that it took two or three years to find out that there was any such book." Twain is, as ever, a sharply honed and contrarian wit, as quick to lampoon himself as anyone else. He is also capable of Whitmanesque flights: "I am," he declares, "the entire human race compacted together"--for better and for worse. Twain admirers will find this volume indispensable and will eagerly await the third volume.

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November 15, 2013

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), requested that his autobiography remain unpublished until 100 years after his death. In 2010, the Mark Twain Project, led by editors Griffin and Harriet E. Smith, released Volume 1 as part of the larger "Mark Twain Papers" series. Volume 2 boasts the writer's stories, observations, opinions, and everything else in between, arranged by the date of their dictation to stenographer Josephine Hobby and author Albert Bigelow Paine. A full 281 pages are dedicated to thorough explanatory notes, appendixes, references, and an index. As much a sensitive and articulate historical work as an autobiography, the book is almost inexhaustible in its content--readers are treated to a biting editorial on mesmerism, a sweet critique of Twain's daughter's biography of her father, and sage opinions regarding American statesman John Hay, all within four pages. Paradoxically, what seems like a mountain of anecdotal scraps and opinions results in a clear picture of Clemens as Twain. VERDICT Highly recommended to dedicated fans and Twain scholars as well as readers of 19th-century American history, autobiography, and literary history.--Benjamin Brudner, Curry Coll. Lib., Milton, MA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2013
In the second volume of this meticulously edited autobiography, readers hear Twain contrast his work with autobiographies giving readers an open window showcasing the famous people in the authors' lives. His autobiography, Twain explains, serves not as a window but as a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. To be sure, this volumecomprising material Twain dictated between April 1906 and February 1907, two years before ending his dictationdoes afford glimpses of notable contemporaries, including Bret Harte, James Russell Lowell, and Helen Keller. But the narrative repeatedly shows the novelist scrutinizing himself: watching, for instance, how he scowls at the depredations of Jay Gould, how he smiles at the antics of a pet cat, how he grieves at the anniversary of his wife's death. The episodes of self-examination spin outas Twain acknowledgeslike an excursion . . . that sidetracks itself unpredictably. But Griffin and Smith's careful annotations clarify the chronology running through Twain's reflections about the face looking back at him from his mirrornow set in the perfect deadpan of a master humorist, now contorted with the acute anguish of a distressed soul. A treasure deserving shelf space next to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)