Autobiography of Mark Twain

Twain started the composition of an autobiography in 1870, but proceeded intermittently, abandoning the work and resuming it sporadically, accumulating a total of 30-40 of these “false starts” over the subsequent 35 years. The majority of the autobiography was dictated rather than written directly—this was described by a reviewer in 2010 as "[having] a secretary follow him around and take down his every passing thought". These dictations were made frequently in 1906 and 1907. Over the two subsequent years, Twain appeared to have neglected the book, scarcely adding new material; in 1909, following the death of his youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, he proclaimed the project completed. His experimental conception—to “talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment”—implied that his thoughts could wander freely. Twain surmised his autobiography would be most captivating if he deviated on whims and tangents in non-sequential order. Twain's papers, including the autobiographical works, were left as part of a trust for the benefit of his surviving daughter, Clara Clemens. These papers passed through the control of a number of editors, and have been held by the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley since 1971. Twain wrote instructions for future "editors, heirs, and assigns" in 1904, in which he outlined a century-long plan of publications 25 years apart from each other, with each subsequent release featuring progressively potentially-controversial material. In addition to these instructions, Twain celebrated posthumous publication allowing him to speak with his "whole frank mind." In the introduction to the second edition of ''Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review'', however, scholar Michael Kiskis suggests that these delays were less due to Twain's purported concern for those who could be aggrieved by the text, and more likely an attempt to extend the copyright. ==20th-century publications==

Twain had published Chapters from My Autobiography in 25 installments in the North American Review from 1906 to 1907. Since Twain’s death in 1910, various editors have attempted to impose order on the entirety of the material by selection and reorganization, producing several different published versions of The Autobiography. Constructing a publishable Autobiography from the disordered mass of Twain’s unpublished writings posed a significant challenge; in addition, access to the physical materials of Twain’s papers was restricted to limited numbers of scholars for the first half-century after Twain's death. In 1990, scholar Michael Kiskis edited Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review. ==Mark Twain Project edition==

The Mark Twain Project of The Bancroft Library undertook to produce a complete autobiography of Twain, based upon material within their collection. The stated goal is "to publish the complete text as nearly as possible in the way Mark Twain intended it to be published after his death". All three volumes feature introductions and historical annotation from the editors of the work. The head editor for this work was Harriet Elinor Smith. The first of the three volumes in the edition comprises 760 pages. Apart from the transcripts of his autobiographical dictations, Volume 1 also contains introductory material that elucidates the process of the autobiography's composition, in addition to primary documents such as Twain’s initial [incomplete] drafts. The dictations span a period of three months, from January 10 to March 13, in the year 1906. The second volume, published in October 2013, comprises 736 pages and collects dictations spanning eleven months, from April 2, 1906, to February 28, 1907. The Mark Twain Project edition’s third and final volume comprises 792 pages, and was published in October 2015. It contains dictations spanning thirty-one months, from March 1, 1907, to October 21, 1909. The autobiography concludes with a piece composed in December 1909 in which Twain expresses his sorrow over the death of his youngest daughter and states that, along with her, his incentive for writing the autobiography has perished. The third volume is followed by the 429-page “Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript”, composed in 1909, in which Twain accuses his secretary, Isabel Lyon, and business manager, Ralph Ashcroft, of purported embezzlement of money from the author and of interference with Twain’s relationship with his youngest daughter, causing her distress. It is written as a letter to William Dean Howells, although it was neither sent nor intended to be so. It was not Twain’s intention to incorporate this as part of his autobiography, and it remained unpublished until 2015—though it was accessible to scholars as part of his papers. ==References==