Autobiography of mark twain book review

Nov. 22, 2010— -- A century after his death, Mark Twain's wry, curmudgeonly voice is back with the publication of a three-volume autobiography, revealing a complex man whose life was filled with celebrity, financial struggle and intense tragedy.

The creator of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," Twain was quintessentially American, the author of some of the most famous catch phrases of all time, including the 1897 quote, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."

Maybe so.

When he died in 1910 at the age of 74, he had left behind 5,000 edited pages of memoirs that stacked 10-feet tall -- a half million words in all.

"When you read them out loud, you cannot believe the man dictated this and didn't go in and polish them up and revisit them," said Robert Hirst, curator of the Mark Twain Papers.

"You have the man speaking like most of us would like to write."

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