Chapters from My Autobiography [Illustrated] [Kindle Edition]

Mark Twain (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Illustrated with 10 unique illustrations.

I intend that this autobiography shall become a model for all future autobiographies when it is published, after my death, and I also intend that it shall be read and admired a good many centuries because of its form and method--a form and method whereby the past and the present are constantly brought face to face, resulting in contrasts which newly fire up the interest all along, like contact of flint with steel. Moreover, this autobiography of mine does not select from my life its showy
episodes, but deals mainly in the common experiences which go to make up the life of the average human being, because these episodes are of a sort which he is familiar with in his own life, and in which he sees his own life reflected and set down in print.

About the Author

Mark Twain began his career in letters as a printer's apprentice at the age of 12. He worked as a typesetter and hack writer until a trip down the Mississippi inspired him to become a steamboat pilot. Twain was a popular humorist, a failed silver miner, an inventor, a pacifist anti-imperialist, and a vegetarian. He had a strong interest in the paranormal. Twain's novel _Huckleberry Finn_ has profoundly influenced the development of American storytelling.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 688 KB
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001804XHM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #261,988 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, satirist, social critic, lecturer and novelist. He is mostly remembered for his classic novels The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Confessed swindler convicted for honesty, November 2, 2011

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chapters From My Autobiography (Paperback)

MT dictated a lengthy memoir in 1906, but only selected chapters were published at the time. Selection criterion was harmlessness. The rest would have to wait another 100 years... By now the whole is out. Before I go for that, I wanted to have a preview via the previously available chapters. It is an amusing experience, but it will not shake the ground under your feet. It is a collection of all kinds of stories, old and new, personal and political, private and professional, funny and moving, substantial and trivial. Some of them are true, says MT.

Out of nowhere comes the most moving chapter, the death of daughter Susy at 24, of meningitis. Up to this point in the book, the short chapters are trifles... About this or that funny episode with this or that celebrity or in reference to the master's career.
Susy is the star of the text. At 14 she had attempted to write her version of a bio of her dad, and dad has this bio. He prints bits and pieces and lets himself get carried away into his own recollection, jumping up and down across history as fancy takes him. Very entertaining. Susy got introduced in a chapter that started out as a eulogy for his wife ... And got sidetracked to a great sadness about the beloved daughter. It does make sense, after all the wife had lived her life (though she also died rather young, below 60), while daughter had not.

One has to love the portrait of elder brother Orion. In light matters, like religion or politics, his convictions never survived a disapproving comment from a cat. Otherwise he was honest, sincere and trustworthy. He never lost anybody's money and never earned his own.
Also great are the chapters about the childhood memories which went into Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. I learned that Huck Finn's real name was Tom Blankenship. I believe there are some of the offspring still haunting the Ozarks!

I don't normally think that dictation is a great way to write, but then, it does take us back to older habits: before printing and taping, story tellers all worked that way, and it did work. It works reasonably well for MT. He calls himself an embroiderer. His tales have cores of truth. Considering that his way of narration has a long history, one might regret that it nearly died out. Dictation is not entirely the same as telling a story to a life audience, but it comes near. The next step away would be Trollope's writing style: a minimum of pages per day. At the other end of the scale comes the prose stylist who works laboriously at every page that he allows to reach the public eye.
I am tolerant: each method of production has it's justification.

A footnote: I have been paying attention to Halley's Comet and its public appearances in literature. Curious fact about MT: he was born in the year of the comet 1835 and died a day after the next appearance's nearest distance to the earth in 1910. How is that for oddity? Right next to the odd death timing of Adams and Jefferson.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing narrator!, November 22, 2010

By 

Avid Reader and Listener (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chapters from My Autobiography (Audible Audio Edition)

What a delight! The narrator "becomes" Twain and breathes a whole new life into this autobiography! Of course, Twain's life is amazing, and I'm glad this audio edition is available! I think I'm going to get a few for holiday gifts.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Twain is an American Icon, July 29, 2008

By 

Mary Santos (San Antonio, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Autobiography: "Chapters" from the North American Review (Paperback)

I appreciate the musings of Mark Twain and learned a lot about him from this autobiography that I had not known. I encourage everyone to get to know about this American Icon.