Tuesday, December 7th: Benjamin Griffin, associate editor of the Mark Twain Project

The Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Vol. 1

Listen to the event...

Benjamin Griffin is on the editorial staff of the Mark Twain Project at The Bancroft Library. An associate editor of Autobiography Volume 1 , he is co-editor of the two forthcoming volumes, and is preparing a book of writings about--and by--Mark Twain's family circle . A Berkeley native, he was educated at BHS, Cal, St. Andrews, and Cambridge University. He has published books and articles about Shakespeare, Elizabethan literature, Nietzsche, textual criticism, and of course Mark Twain.

"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away—to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his "Final (and Right) Plan" for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion—to "talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment"—meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be "dead, and unaware, and indifferent," and that he was therefore free to speak his "whole frank mind." The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain's works, UC Press is proud to offer for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its entirety and exactly as he left it. This major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.