It took at hundred years, at the authors expressed wishes, but the Autobiography of Mark Twain is finally going to be released. I can't wait. I've read his books at an early age and as an old man. I've read about his adventures traveling the world, sending back stories that were published in newspapers. His description of an elephant, not seen by many in this country at the time he wrote it, mesmerized a nation.

He is to me one of our greatest American authors. I know, I'll hear it in the comments, but to each his own. He was man who had my kind of humor and sarcastic wit, that could shred to pieces anyone who disagreed with him. He was rich at times, poor at times, a fool at times, a genuis at times. But he was all ours, and I loved his writings. He was a very complicated man, and according to this article, these books will be very different than what I was expecting.

From the Independent:

"There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile."

"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." 

The article goes on to say that he will talk about his relationships with other women, especially his secretary, who he claimed tried to steal his fortune. From the same article:

"His little-known but scandalous relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909, after the author claimed she had "hypnotised" him into giving her power of attorney over his estate" 

To be truthful, I don'want to know about this. I want to know about all the famous people he knew and how he went toe-to-toe with some of the greatest minds of his generation. I want to know what made him tick, not some scandalous details of some affair he had as an old man. I want to know the Twain of his youth and middle age, when he did great, great things.  

Some of this stuff is known. Some never been seen before. I hope it sheds a light into a great mind that got me through my childhood in one piece, by reading. That took me to India and other foreign countries that I could only dream about in my youth. I hope it takes me inside the mind of Mark Twain, just a little. Most autobiographies disappoint for some reason. I hope this one takes me back in time, to a little boy with a vivid imagination that rode that elephant with him and dreamed of far off places. 

From the independent:

** "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". 

                                Written and Produced by the ScanMan

*Photo and Everything in parenthesis from the Independent