From the Independent:
Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain’s dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published.
The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.
That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist.
(Via Maude Newton, who also directs us toward Neil Gaiman reflecting on the influence of Ray Bradbury.)
Tomorrow in annoying-as-hell literary trends: Mark Twain’s Autobiography…With Zombies!
I think it might be interesting.
WHAT? This is amazing news. While mandating that your memoirs not be released for 100 years is crazy pretentious, you get a free pass when you’re MARK FUCKING TWAIN.
I’m with Colin: MARK FUCKING TWAIN! I will also be standing at the ready to buy this thing. It will undoubtedly be far more hilarious than any humorous writing of the last century.
I can’t wait to read this. But being a bit lazy, I do wish it would be edited down to one volume.
@ Blabby: Agreed.
I also wish Twain would have had the foresight to lay down the audiobook recording.
So when is Zombie Mark Twain doing a reading at Powell’s?