Ever the Twain shall meet

October 22, 2015 5:33 AM

Over a hundred years after his death (it was supposed to be a hundred but you know how people can be), The Autobiography of Mark Twain has been released in its entirety (Volume One previously).

If anyone has literally died waiting for this, I can only hope that they too left the world alongside something exactly as weird as they. (Warning, video may not work in your country (it doesn't in mine) and, depending on the edit used, may contain Satan.)

Project Gutenberg has a large collection of Twain's works.

posted by BiggerJ (9 comments total)

Metafilter: May contain Satan.
posted by DiscountDeity at 5:44 AM on October 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

So does it turn out that it was not just a made up story and he really traveled in time back to the middle ages?
posted by sammyo at 5:46 AM on October 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

So does it turn out that it was not just a made up story and he really traveled in time back to the middle ages?

Also somehow ended up on the Enterprise as well.
posted by Fizz at 5:54 AM on October 22, 2015

At one of the shows on which I work (and loathe, in general) one of the usual passel of ditzy young talent had a little piece to report. She asked the older anchor if he knew the first author to write a book on a typewriter.

He said "that's an easy one. Samuel Clemens."

She looked annoyed. "No. Mark Twain."

Classic. Never been taken seriously by anyone in the studio since.
posted by nevercalm at 6:03 AM on October 22, 2015 [25 favorites]

Did someone call me?
posted by Twain Device at 6:10 AM on October 22, 2015 [9 favorites]

I bought the unabridged audiobook of Volume One. 26 discs long and it did not disappoint. Actual autobiography proper didn't start until disc 10, I believe.
posted by GrapeApiary at 6:18 AM on October 22, 2015

My stepdad was a big Twain fan-- he literally did die waiting for this, so I guess I have to read it (he complained about the first volume being mostly about the autobiography and not actual Twain, too!)
posted by blnkfrnk at 7:02 AM on October 22, 2015

Holy shit, that incredibly weird claymation Mark Twain movie. I had not until this moment realized how much of my idea of him as a person I must have absorbed from that, having not seen it since it was in relentless rotation on some cable channel in the 80s.
posted by brennen at 10:17 AM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

She looked annoyed. "No. Mark Twain."

Never asked for a clip before, please please pretty please!
posted by sammyo at 3:21 PM on October 22, 2015