The University of Wisconsin Press

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Autobiography / Literature & Criticism / American Studies

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Mark Twain's Own Autobiography The Chapters from the North American Review Second Edition Mark Twain Edited by Michael J. Kiskis Foreword by Sheila Leary Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography William L. Andrews, General Editor "Now, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true." —Mark Twain Mark Twain's Own Autobiography stands as the last of Twain's great yarns. Here he tells his story in his own way, freely expressing his joys and sorrows, his affections and hatreds, his rages and reverence— ending, as always, tongue-in-cheek: "Now, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true." More than the story of a literary career, this memoir is anchored in the writer's relation to his family—what they meant to him as a husband, father, and artist. It also brims with many of Twain's best comic anecdotes about his rambunctious boyhood in Hannibal, his misadventures in the Nevada territory, his notorious Whittier birthday speech, his travels abroad, and more. Twain published twenty-five "Chapters from My Autobiography" in the North American Review in 1906 and 1907. "I intend that this autobiography . . . shall be read and admired a good many centuries because of its form and method—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." For this second edition, Michael Kiskis's introduction references a wealth of critical work done on Twain since 1990. He also adds a discussion of literary domesticity, locating the autobiography within the history of Twain's literary work and within Twain's own understanding and experience of domestic concerns. Michael J. Kiskis is the Leonard Tydings Grant Professor of American Literature at Elmira College. • 2010 is the centenary of Twain’s death. Events are planned at sites throughout the United States • The Mark Twain House and Museum, Hartford, CT www.marktwainhouse.org • The Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College, Elmira, NY www.elmira.edu/academics/distinctive_programs/twain _center • The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Hannibal, MO www.marktwainmuseum.org • The Mark Twain Papers & Project, University of California, Berkeley http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP For more information regarding publicity and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu

February 2010 LC: 2009010516 PS 392 pp.   6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-299-23474-4 Paper $18.95 t ISBN 978-0-299-23473-7 e-book $9.99 t To purchase, add print or e-book titles to your shopping cart by clicking on the "Add this book to cart" link above. You will then be able to be pay with your credit card and send your order to our distribution center in Chicago. Click here for a further explanation of the shopping cart feature.   Mark Twain's Own Autobiography will soon be available through Amazon.com on the Kindle wireless reading device. Institutional Vendors: e-book editions of Mark Twain's Own Autobiography, will soon be available from Ebrary, Follett Digital, MyiLibrary, and NetLibrary. Click here for an explanation of these e-book formats. • Over 10,000 copies of the first edition sold "Distinctly Mark Twain." —Publishers Weekly

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