Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1

The Complete and Authoritative Edition

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

“I’ve struck it!” Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. “And I will give it away - to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography.”

Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his “Final (and Right) Plan” for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion - to “talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment” - meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be “dead, and unaware, and indifferent” and that he was therefore free to speak his “whole frank mind”.

The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain’s death. In celebration of this important milestone, here, for the first time, is Mark Twain’s uncensored autobiography, in its entirety, exactly as he left it. This major literary event offers the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain’s authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave, as he intended.

Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith and other editors of the Mark Twain Project.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) was born Samuel L. Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri. One of the most popular and influential authors our nation has ever produced, his keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. He has been called not only the greatest humorist of his age but the father of American literature.

©2010 2001 by the Mark Twain Foundation. All Rights Reserved. Transcription, reconstruction, and creation of the texts, introduction, notes, and appendixes copyright 2010 by the Regents of the University of California (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“With the uncensored Twain finally here, we’re the furthest thing from indifferent.” ( Time magazine)

“Twain’s memoirs are a pointillist masterpiece from which his vision of America - half paradise, half swindle - emerges with indelible force.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“Mark Twain, always so blithely ahead of his time, has just outdone himself: he’s brought us an autobiography from beyond the grave.” (Ron Powers, author of Mark Twain: A Life)

Only if you like research

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Mark Twain never could write an autobiography. As he says, he writes about what interests him--and it obviously is not his own life. Comments about others come easy to Twain but the reader has to dig to get a view of Twain's life. The sections from his daughter Susie, who died young, do give some continuity to this scholarly book. Mainly, it is incidents, thoughts, anecdotes and opinions that Twain puts down in any order and in any way he wants. Luckily, even his random thoughts are interesting. Don't come to this expecting to understand Twain's life. It is more a slice of life seen from Twain's twinkling eyes.

What was most disappointing about Mark Twain???s story?

The most disappointing part is that I came away not having a real sense of his life.

Have you listened to any of Grover Gardner???s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The narrator was excellent.

Poor Sam...

I’ve always enjoyed MT/SC, but the non-Mark Twain authored comments from the researchers are brutal. I was tempted to put my Tesla on autopilot and take a nap during these parts, but when I tried, I remembered I don’t own a Tesla. Then I had to get through Sam’s “great experiment” of an autobiography, which is really just a random collection of thoughts and events in his life arranged in no particular chronological order. The researchers will explain Sam’s thinking regarding why he wanted to write an “autobiography” the way he did, but that doesn’t make this non-autobiography any easier to swallow. There are many entertaining parts of this book, but as Sam will explain to you from his tomb, it’s NOT like any autobiography you are used to. I would have preferred to remember Mark Twain the way most of the world remembers him, but that seems impossible now. I wish they had stopped at Volume 1.

WHAT IS WRITTEN BY HIM ROCKS THE REST SO SO

I ENJOYED VERY MUCH HIS WORK AND ABILITY TO USE WORDS AND EXPRESS IDEAS. WHAT I DID NOT ENJOY WAS THE INTRODUCTION PART READ WITH THE SAME TONE AND FOR A VERY LONG PART OF THIS AUDIOBOOK THAT MADE IT TEDIOUS.

Grover Gardner IS Mark Twain

This year marked my introduction to Mark Twain, both listening and reading, and in the past 7 months I’ve consumed all his fiction, and much of the non-fiction. Being a completist, the autobiographies were a given.

I treat these autobiographies as spending time in Twain’s company, slowly going through them (and so perhaps once I’ve finally completed them all, my perspective may shift). Gardner’s voice suits, in my mind at least, the writer of these words, the face on the cover.

This first book is probably not for the casual Twain reader, and isn’t a page-turner to be thrown in among some of his best works, but if you like the voice that accompanies you throughout his other books, this is a joyful way to spend time listening to a masterful performance that captures the very essence of the words on the page.

Excited for Volume 2 Release

I mean what can you say about Mark Twain's autobiography. It is interesting, it's entertaining, it's enlightening and it's Mark Twain's life and style. Good stuff.

Wonderful World of Mark Twain

The reader did a wonderful job transporting me into the mind of such a fabulous philosopher of his time. Mark Twain had wisdom that ran deep in his written word.

This literature is comtaminated

Some works of literature are best read aloud. This is true of most of Mark Twain's writing. Unfortunately this is not true of most scholarly work. I appreciate the amount of scholarly research that was necessary to assemble the Autobiography of Mark Twain. That doesn't mean I want to listen to it. The narrator commences this work with an introduction that contains detailed descriptions of the various hand written and typed manuscripts and the multiple edit marks. After an hour of this tedium, we are finally treated to some of Mark Twain's writings. This might have been tolerable if they had quit there, but each section of each chapter is introduced with more details about how it was selected and assembled. When I go to a concert, I want to hear music. I know there are musicologists who have studied the intimate details of the compositions. There is great skill that goes into this study, but scholarship is not music. Neither is it literature. I have some advice for editors who insert their scholarship into fine literature. Words written about literature are not literature. There are some people who care about these details, but they are exceedingly few in number. This is what post notes are for. If you ever again feel compelled to contaminate a work of literature with your own composition, go take a nap. Bye and Bye, the compulsion will pass. If it doesn't, find another line of work.

Loved it.

So many stories. Such a rich life. An iconic figure of American history brought to life through this reading. This volume ended with reading of a letter addressed to Mr. Clemens from Hellen Keller. Talk about a cliffhanger!

Grover Gardner reading a Mark Twain biography!

Don't be late for work, after staying up all night listening to this! Mark Twain!

Good story, good reader.

From the multiple starts and stops at attempting an autobiography, Samuel Clemmens finds organization by using his daughter's biography, of him, as well as other methods as a rough outline to tell his tale. He is a good storyteller and Grover Gardner did a superb job. I did skip most of the first three chapters though as it was notes about how the autobiography was put together from so much separate material.