Chapters from My Autobiography

By Mark Twain

Mark Twain originally planned his autobiography for publication long after his death. Only in that way, he believed, could he write freely about his experiences and his contemporaries. But in 1906 he accepted a proposal to publish selections from the autobiography in the North American Review, and the twenty-five "Chapters from My Autobiography" presented here were published in the Review from September 1906 through December 1907. Each installment was prefaced by the following:

Prefatory Note -- Mr. Clemens began to write his autobiography many years ago, and he continues to add to it day by day. It was his original intention to permit no publication of his memoirs until after his death; but, after leaving "Pier No. 70," he concluded that a considerable portion might now suitably be given to the public. It is that portion, garnered from the quarter-million of words already written, which will appear in this Review during the coming year. No part of the autobiography will be published in book form during the lifetime of the author. -- Editor N. A. R.

Mark Twain continued to dictate his autobiography until shortly before he died and it finally amounted to some half-million words, providing plenty of material for four editions and a definitive edition still to come.

Contents

• Chapter 1
  Introduction, ancestors, the Tennessee land, Colonel Sellers of The Gilded Age.

·         Chapter 2
Publication of his first books, a childhood experience in Hannibal, an afternoon with Robert Louis Stevenson.

·         Chapter 3
Mark Twain's memories of his wife, early married life, and daughter Susy who died in 1896.

·         Chapter 4
Susy Clemens's biography of Mark Twain and his comments on it and the subjects it discusses.

·         Chapter 5
Susy's biography, childhood incidents incorporated into Tom Sawyer, visiting Hannibal in 1902.

·         Chapter 6
Susy's biography, visits to Vassar College and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

·         Chapter 7
Meetings with Grover Cleveland, his neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe.

·         Chapter 8
The duel that forced him to move from Nevada to California.

·         Chapter 9
The American monarchy and human nature, performing with a mesmerizer in Hannibal.

·         Chapter 10
Misadventures of Orion Clemens, an apprenticeship at the Hannibal Courier.

·         Chapter 11
Misadventures of Orion Clemens, the Hannibal Journal, becoming a steamboat pilot, Governor Nye of Nevada Territory.

·         Chapter 12
Orion Clemens's many business failures, John Hay's advice about writing an autobiography.

·         Chapter 13
Hannibal, the Quarles Farm, slavery, childhood experiences and people incorportated into Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

·         Chapter 14
Susy's biography, Clara's childhood remarks, the Emperor of Germany and the portier on "Old Times on the Mississippi," Rev. Harris's green hair.

·         Chapter 15
Cats, clothing, the white suit, billiards.

·         Chapter 16
"Emboidering" the truth, the Monday Evening Club, "long nine" cigars, his dream of Henry Clemens's death.

·         Chapter 17
The children collect flies, learning to ride a bicycle, internalizing childhood tragedies, the many lives of "Jim Wolf and the Cats."

·         Chapter 18
Susy's biography, a Christian Union article on punishing children, the "Mind Cure," Susy's view of Mark Twain as a philosopher.

·         Chapter 19
Susy's biography, charades and the children's plays, Olivia Clemens "expergates" Huckleberry Finn, Andrew Carnegie's plan for Simplified Spelling Reform, ducks at Hartford, excerpts from the "Children's Record."

·         Chapter 20
The Innocents Abroad, unconscious plagiarism of the dedication, the Alta-California copyrights his letters from the Quaker City tour, beginner's luck.

·         Chapter 21
Susy's biography, originals of Huck Finn and Injun Joe, childhood friends at Dawson's school, with Joseph Twichell in Bermuda.

·         Chapter 22
Summer at Onteora, Dean Sage and Twichell, an unfinished chapter on dueling, Captain Osborn swindled.

·         Chapter 23
Childhood friends in Hannibal, the Oxford degree.

·         Chapter 24
Onteora, Charles Dudley Warner, Joel Chandler Harris, Jim Wolf and the wasps, James Redpath, playing games of skill with defective equipment.

·         Chapter 25
The Whittier birthday speech, General Nelson A. Miles and the dog.