One Hundred Years Later, Twain finally speaks his piece
Mark Twain never struck me as someone afraid to say what was on his mind. And yet, Samuel Clemens, the cranky, opinionated author of 鈥�The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,鈥� decided that his real views about a host of matters, from war to Wall Street, were too incendiary to be published until a century after his death.
The 100 years are finally up, and this November the University of California Press will publish the first of three volumes of the 鈥淎utobiography of Mark Twain.鈥� The finished project runs a whopping 500,000 words, and completists (and college students working on their theses) will be able to see all original 750,000 online at the .
For those who can鈥檛 wait four months more for a taste, yesterday, Britain鈥檚 literary journal, Granta, printed the first excerpt, 鈥淭he Farm,鈥� which includes Twain's reminiscences of visiting his uncle鈥檚 farm in Missouri, in its issue titled 鈥�.鈥� While you鈥檒l need to purchase a copy to read the entire article, Granta does include an excerpt in .
叠谤颈迟补颈苍鈥檚 Guardian newspaper also offers excerpts of the childhood memories that informed Twain鈥檚 most well-loved novels, 鈥�The Adventures of Tom Sawyer鈥� and 鈥�Huckleberry Finn.鈥�
Twain鈥檚 method of 鈥渨riting鈥� his autobiography created a few challenges, his editors say. He dictated most of it to a stenographer in the last four years before his death in 1910. She took his words down in shorthand and then copied the whole thing out.
While that decision may have led to a more colloquial and spontaneous style, it was long considered 鈥渦neditable,鈥� as Benjamin Griffin writes in 鈥�.鈥� For one thing, the stenographer鈥檚 original record has been lost, and for another, she apparently got a few things wrong here and there, such as substituting 鈥渃ocoa鈥� for 鈥渃oca.鈥�
But figuring out Twain鈥檚 original intent wasn鈥檛 even the most daunting challenge his editors faced, as Griffin writes:
鈥淚 can鈥檛 refrain from describing one of the most intractable editorial tasks I ever came across. In the piece called 鈥淧rivate History of a Manuscript That Came to Grief,鈥� Clemens wishes to present a manuscript of his own that got incompetently revised by an editor (one of the recurring motifs of the Autobiography is that you can鈥檛 trust an editor). So, Clemens wants to reproduce the manuscript showing not only his original but also the editor鈥檚 revisions. Except, he has had the whole affair re-copied by a typist, showing the editor鈥檚 editing, but making his own revisions. So we had to edit Clemens鈥檚 editing of the editor鈥檚 editing鈥�.鈥�
The mind reels. And the hands itch to get a hold of a copy.
Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews books for the Monitor.
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