Chapters from my Autobiography by Mark Twain
“...if I should talk to a stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime...
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“...if I should talk to a stenographer two hours a day for a
hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth
part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime.” The
words of Mark Twain in his introduction to Chapters from my
Autobiography provide a tantalizing glimpse of what is in store for
the reader! Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne
Clemens was still working on his reminiscences when he died in
1910. This book is really only a portion of the complete work. The
interesting part of his autobiography is that the first volume of
700 odd pages was published exactly 100 years after his death, in
2010 by the University of California in keeping with his last will
and testament. It achieved wild popular success. This made Twain
the only best seller writer to be famous in the 19th, 20th and 21st
centuries! Twain also intended that his autobiography should serve
as a model for future writers because of its unique form and
method. He sought to constantly bring the past and present face to
face so that the resultant sparks would light a fire of interest in
his readers. With this aim in mind, the book is structured in an
extremely loose chronological order, switching back and forth in
time, relating episodes that are not connected sequentially with
each other yet remaining wonderfully interesting, like a colorful
mosaic of experiences. Which is how Twain felt life should be
portrayed. Brimming with Twain's own brand of irreverent humor, the
book begins with an attempt to trace his ancestors, the Clemenses,
to Civil War England. He plunges next into a hilarious account of
his early experiences as an author in New York in 1867 and then
leaps into a wonderfully evocative retelling of his childhood in
Hannibal, Missouri in 1849, on the banks of the Mississippi. These
experiences formed the basis of his immortal Tom Sawyer/
Huckleberry Finn books. Further chapters describe meeting writers
like Bret Harte, Robert Louis Stevenson and others. Twain himself
had an extremely eventful and colorful life. He worked variously as
a newspaper hack, silver miner, inventor, printer's apprentice,
steamboat pilot and typesetter. He was also a famous anti-war
thinker, pacifist, vegetarian and anti-imperialist. He used humor
and satire effectively to convey his ideas in novels, plays and
historical fiction. Chapters from my Autobiography is a delightful
jumble of recollections. Some of them are poignant and moving like
the chapter that deals with the death of his daughter Susy while
others are memorable like the brilliant portrait of his older
brother Orion. For Mark Twain enthusiasts, humor fans and anyone
who simply loves a great read, Chapters from an Autobiography is a
great read.
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