Mark Twain's autobiography to be published... after 100 year wait

Written by JBMoney Thursday, 27 May 2010 13:54

Mark Twain (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)  left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910 and one of his parting wishes was that they not be published for 100 years.

That time has come.

I'll be working to clear up my unfinished Kindle books before the big day in November, when the first of three volumes is expected to be released. According to The Independent, this should be some good stuff from one of the most (mis)quoted men in American History:

Another potential motivation for leaving the book to be posthumously published concerns Twain's legacy as a Great American. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image.

"He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there."

In other sections of the autobiography, Twain makes cruel observations about his supposed friends, acquaintances and one of his landladies.