This volume didn't quite work for me.

Call me crazy but insofar as an Autobiography of Mark Twain it falls just a little bit short. Although most of the work is truly autobiographical, the book draws verbatim not a little from the biography written by Twain's daughter. Then also, there are whole sections devoted to other people like Orion Clemens. But most of all for me, this was more about Samuel Clemens than Mark Twain. Yes, I know they were one in the same. However, I came to learn more about Mark Twain the author. While I found it interesting just how closely some of Twain's tales matched the real life experiences of his alter ego, these insights were too few and far between for me.

I must have read Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer up to a half a dozen times growing up. I think Connecticut Yankee is super. I love some of Twain's other fantastic fiction (yup. he wrote it).

I'm sorry to say that I rate his autobiography the least of these works.

I’ve read this book twice. Part of it my friend and I read to one another when we were traveling in France and had to share a bed. We laughed so hard that people wondered what we were up to. Samuel Clemenz (so?) wrote about his life and adventures and how he became Mark Twain which is a pen name taken from his river piloting days. While an extremely funny book in parts, Twain’s life is peppered by tragedy such as the loss of his brother and some of his children, but it is a wonderful read that you’ll want to read again.

I read a selection of chapters actually published (in periodical form) during his life, which was quite heavy on the excerpts from his daughter's biography of him. A conceit that made for this humorist's story, full of satirical and joking anecdotes as it was, surprisingly heartfelt and full of little meditations on mortality (not just his daughter's death at twenty-four, but quite a few other references to friends lost). While still teeming with Twain's trademark wit, of course. It was sweet.

One star off for not rising above prejudices of the time (or at least implicitly accepting racial and gender status quos). And for the unabashed egotism--not of the giant autobiography itself, though I'd never have the gall to write such a vast, unedited thing, but of the overbearing and self-important character he admits to in his descriptions of himself.

This tome is an epic! Very interesting, but I didn’t get through it before it came due back at the library. I’ll check it out again when I have more time...

This review also appears on my blog www.silashruparell.com

My one liner: If Huckleberry Finn gave you pleasure as a child, this collection of letters and notes of Mark Twain, will give you as much pleasure now.

Take profits on your stock positions when they have gone up. Not all new technologies are great investments. Heed the advice of technical experts. Due diligence is no substitute for “friends and family”. Some basic investment propositions that are as true today as they were 150 years ago. And Mark Twain was a pretty disastrous investor.

Some time in the 1860s he took a stock tip from his acquaintance Mr Camp, “a bold man who was always making big fortunes in ingenious speculations and losing them again in the course of six months by other speculative ingenuities”. The tip was to buy Hale and Norcross, and he purchased 50 shares at $300 a share, putting in 20% himself, with the rest on margin. He also persuaded his brother, Orion, to come in for half the amount, and awaited the cheque. Predictably enough, Hale and Norton went through the roof hitting $6,000 per share. Inexplicably Twain waited for Orion’s money before selling out. Predictably enough Hale and Norton came crashing back down. Blasted through the margin and into Twain’s equity, and “at last when I got out I was badly crippled”. Only later does Twain find out that his brother had sent the money in gold (rather than a cheque which any “normal human being” would have done) to a nearby hotel, and the clerk had deposited it in the safe and forgotten about it.

Then there was the foray into patents. Twain acquires a patent for $15,000 from an “old and particular” friend who had neglected to mention to him that it was worthless. The deal was that Twain would pay a further $500 per month to the friend who would do the manufacturing and selling. In his colourful humour Twain tells us “that raven flew out of the Ark regularly every thirty days and the dove didn’t report for duty.”

Or the steam engine, which “another old friend” told him would get out 99% of all the steam that was in a pound of coal. He takes the advice of a coal and steam expert who shows him using a book of “figures that made me drunk and dizzy” which the machine could not come within 90% of the claimed steam release. Despite the expert advice Twain proceeds and engages the inventor because “maybe the book was mistaken”. Five thousand dollars later, the inventor comes up with a machine which saved 1% steam, but “you could do it with a teakettle.” Undeterred, Twain now fancies himself as an enthusiast on steam and takes some stock in a Hartford company which is a making a new kind of steam pulley. “That pulley pulled thirty two thousand dollars out of my pocket in sixteen months, then went to pieces.”

These are just a few anecdotes from a collection of letters and notes which constitute the autobiography of Mark Twain (real name Samuel Clemens), put together from 1870 up to his death in 1910, and edited into a book by Charles Neider in 1959. He is not afraid to admit his follies, and he is not afraid to admit his vanity:

“This Autobiography of mine is a mirror and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back...and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation I set these things down in my Autobiography.”

We learn that Twain was a highly proficient billiards and pool player. And with our modern world obsessed with level playing fields and standardised rules he gives us the story of the billiards table at Jackass Gulch, a dilapidated former mining town which the gold deposits were now exhausted. The saloon is of a “ruined and rickety character struggling for life, but doomed.” And the pool table reflected this, with chipped balls, the cloth darned and patched, the table’s surface undulated with headless cues that “had the curve of a parenthesis”. And Twain postulates that it would be much more entertaining to have the great champions who grace the competition tables of Madison Square pit their skills against Texas Tom of Jackass Gulch on the bad billiard outfit, where adjustments have to be made for all of the table’s faults and inaccuracies. Possibly some life lessons there.

And how did Twain conceive of Finn, the reckless boyhood adventurer ? Well there must have been something of the Twain about Finn. An example comes from 1845 when a measles epidemic is claiming the lives of many children in Mark Twain’s home town. The ten-year old Twain is so engulfed with impatience as to whether he will succumb to the epidemic that he forces the issue by deliberately sneaking into the house of his measles-infected friend and jumping into bed next to him. Needless to say he contracts that disease, but survives by a whisker.

The book is a fascinating insight into an America which is transforming from Emerging Market to Global Superpower (“Steadily, continuously, persistently, we are Americanizing Europe, and all in good time we shall get the job perfected”). Twain was a supporter of equality, though his language reflects what was culturally acceptable and normal in a country where slavery was still prevalent. And he was active all the way to his death. Although one suspects that if the death of his wife in Italy 1904 was a near-fatal emotional blow to him, then the loss of his daughter Jean in 1909 probably sapped his remaining will to live.

Зарових се из биография��а на Марк Твен.

Като стигна до финала ще ви кажа какво се случва…всъщност още в самото начало вдъхва надежда:

“Винаги са ми казвали, че съм болнаво, изнежено, капризно и хилаво дете и през първите седем години от живота ми са ме крепили главно с лекарства. Когато майка ми караше осемдесет и осмата си година, веднъж й подметнах:
- По онова време сигурно непрекъснато си се тревожила за мен.
- Да, непрекъснато.
- Страхуваше се, че няма да ме бъде ли?
След известно мълчание - очевидно за да премисли- тя отвърна:
- Не, страхувах се, че ще те бъде."

Винаги с хумор:

"Жалко, че светът трябва да се отказва от толкова много хубави неща само защото били нездравословни. Аз лично се съмнявам, че създателят може да ни е дал някое подкрепително, което, използвано с мярка, да е нездравословно. Изключение правят само микробите. И все пак има хора, които упорито се лишават от редица неща - били те за ядене, пиене или пушене, - спечелили си по един или друг начин съмнително име. В името на здравето тези хора се отказват от какво ли не. И им остава едно голо здраве. Необяснима работа! Все едно да дадеш цялото си състояние за някоя крава, която вече не пуска мляко."

An amazing book by an amazing man. If it's true that he dictated all of this, he seemed to be able to talk as well as he could write. I also loved the excerpts from his daughter Susy's biography of him. Her take on her father, written when she was thirteen years old, is charming, and his reaction to her death at age 24 is heart-wrenching: "It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live." This book provides incredible insight into the life and literature of one of the best American writers of all time.

“In this Autobiography I shall keep in mind that I am speaking from the grave. I am literally speaking from the grave, because I shall be dead when the book issues from the press”(Twain xxxv).
tThe Autobiography of Mark Twain explores the many aspects and anecdotes of Mark Twain’s life, as well as the many people who influenced Twain and his work immensely. He reveals his personal thoughts of the people around him, and the world around him. He reveals himself as a person who writes what he knows, as many of his beloved characters are based off of people he has known. Since the topic of the book is on his own life, it was very rich and full of detail. This is an exhilarating read, and is easily one of the best books I have read.
tMr. Twain had led very rich and full life, which increase the quality of the piece itself. He goes from having a very incomplete education to having a honorary degree from Oxford University. He’s narrowly avoided death by duel, and faces hardship in the forms of massive debt. He is surrounded by loving family members and greedy publishers. He meets many famous people, including President Ulysses S. Grant, who asked Twain for his help when writing his autobiography.
tWhat struck me about this book was that, at the middle of the book, I started to treat it not as a a boring biography but as an immersive and interesting story. He presents the events of his life with certain flair. For example, when Twain and a fellow author talk about Twain’s private politics:
“Some days afterward I met her again for a moment and she gave me the startling information that she had written down everything I said, just as I said it, without any softening and purifying modifications… She begged me to let her publish.. but I said it would damn me before my time and I don’t wish to be useful to the world on such expensive conditions. (467) ”
tHowever, the writing is a bit sporadic, as he tends to switch from an event from his early childhood to an event later in life. For example, he jumps from talking about his father’s style of cooking potatoes, to a feast that is being hosted by the Emperor of Germany. Although he is able to make it flow very well most of the time, it can become a hassle rereading notes trying to understand what was going on.
tMark Twain’s presentation of his own life is vivid and full. Though his writing was chaotic at times, the Twain flair makes the chaos more exciting, more lively than an ordinary autobiography. Its dynamic presentation, although exciting, can break the pacing of the book. Also, some points of his life by themselves seem mundane. However, in the end, the strengths of The Autobiography of Mark Twain highlights this book as an exciting read.

Mark Twain is my favorite author. There is some hometown favoritism, but he is objectively a hilarious man, whose ability to garner laughs has withstood the test of time and generational change. The fact that he's from near St Louis and had very close ties to that city throughout his life, and is closely associated also with my adopted and spiritual hometown of San Francisco, doesn't hurt. His progressivism, often ignored in light of his portrayal of non-white characters in some of his books, shines through in his autobiography, and is worth celebrating.
His autobiography is appropriately hilarious. I listened to it (to the Charles Neider version), although I also bought a copy of the 1959 version from Neider because I felt it important to have a copy of it.
His opinion of his own place in contemporary culture is higher than I thought. Perhaps his arrogance is mostly tongue-in-cheek. But it was something that surprised me a bit in the book.
He suffered a ton of personal loss in his lifetime, losing siblings, children, and a wife before his own life ended at what was then a fairly ripe old age.
Who is the Mark Twain of today? We need one! He brought so much joy into the lives of so many people during his life and since.

Mark Twain worked on his Autobiography for much of his writing life. The two volumes that he produced consisted of his efforts to ‘bring the past and the present face-to-face’. The final product contained a series of humorous stories involving many ‘average’ people whom he had met during his long and storied career as a printer, riverboat pilot, national and international traveler, prospector, newspaper journalist, public speaker, author, and The spokesperson for American literature and thought, at the turn of the Twentieth century.

Twain’s Autobiography has been edited by multiple scholars since his death. Each effort to improve risked making it slightly worse. Two of the changes made by Charles Neider, in the volume I have been reading, eliminating chapter subtitles and many of Twain’s commas, are not improvements. I found both of these structural devices helpful in reading Twain’s Following the Equator a journey around the world.

The following vignettes from The Autobiography of Mark Twain are examples of the goals, methods, and styles of Twain’s work:
•t“This Autobiography of mine differs from other Autobiographies…The conventional biography of all ages is an open window. The autobiographer sits there and examines and discusses the people that go by – not all of them, but the notorious ones, the famous ones…illustrious people with whom he has had the high privilege of coming in contact…This Autobiography of mine is a mirror and I am looking at myself all the time. Incidentally, I notice the people that pass along my back – I get glimpses of them in the mirror – and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation I set these things down in my Autobiography. I rejoice when a king or a duke comes my way and makes himself useful to this Autobiography, but they are rare customers, with wide intervals between. I can use them with good effect as lighthouses and monuments along my way, but for real business, I depend upon the common herd.”
•t“Humor is only a fragrance, a decoration…It (humor) must preach and teach, if it is to last forever (meaning 30 years).”
•t“The last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race – that is to say, the study of myself, for in my individual person I am the entire human race compacted together.”
•t“At an author’s meeting in Chickering Hall, New York…I sat by James Russel Lowell on the platform and he asked me what I was going to read. I said I was going to tell a brief and wholly pointless anecdote in a dreary and monotonous voice and therein would consist my whole performance. He said, ‘That is a strange idea. What do you expect to accomplish?’ I said, ‘Only a laugh. I want the audience to laugh’…When my turn came, I got up and exactly repeated and most gravely and drearily, the San Francisco performance (wherein he had repeated a silly story about Horace Greeley in a stagecoach)…I never got a response of any kind until I had told that juiceless anecdote in the same unvarying words, five times; then the house saw the point and annihilated the heart-breaking silence with a delightful crash…The house kept up with the crash for a minute or two and it was a soothing and blessed thing to hear.”
•tTwain’s favorite Introduction as the speaker at his performances, “I don’t know anything about this man. At least, I only know two things; one, he hasn’t been up in the penitentiary; and the other is, I don’t know why.”
•tRaised by his mother as a strict Presbyterian, who had read his Bible, Twain recognized that Providence acts in his time, and without much regard for collateral damage. Accordingly, after he had been fired by the San Francisco Morning Caller, Mark Twain was prepared to wait years for justice. When he saw pictures from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that included the devastation of the building in which he had been a writer, he recognized Divine intervention on his personal behalf.
•t“When I was younger I could remember anything whether it happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I will be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”

Mark Twain was a profound humanist, who could present iconoclastic ideas with such subtlety, grace, and humor, as to hamstring most who might try to resist his spell. After reading Twain’s Autobiography, I was again overcome (as I had been after reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for example) by the revelation that this wildly entertaining and hilariously funny man was an American thinker of the greatest depth and highest order. As Charles Neider wrote in his Introduction: “If read superficially the chapters seem savagely irreverent, but they are the work of a profoundly religious man. They are attacks on orthodoxy, cant, and sham, in religion, and are an indication of the boldness and strength of Mark Twain’s mind…”

سيرة ذاتية للكاتب الأمريكي و الأديب مارك توين ، يحكي قصة حياته و تنقلاته من دولة لأخرى و المناصب التي شغلها من صحفي إلى رُبان سفينة ثم مراسل ، يحكي عن عائلته زوجته و ابنتيه و كيف عاش حياة عائلية هانئة إلى أن أخذ المرض ابنته ذات الأربع و عشرين عاماً و حزن لفراقها حُزناً شديداً، و بعدها بثمان سنوات مرضت زوجته لمدة عامين التي قال عنها " من أنبل النساء" فلا مثيل لها عنده حيث أحبها و ساندته دون كلل أو ملل ، و ماتت بمرضها فقال "ما أشد فقري أنا الذي كنتُ يوماً شديد الغنى".

This is the autobiography of one of my all time favorite authors. I found it less about Samuel Clements and more just a series of stories he tells, loosely based on his life. I found it fairly interesting, but kind of long.