Published: The Autobiography of Mark Twain – Volume 2

Max Eternity - Volume 2 of the Autobiography of Mark Twain is now published.  

Samuel L. Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, authored the book in a style that’s reads as editorial diary; formatted as a well-annotated and historically-succinct prose timeline as told by Twain in the first-person narrative.

Written during Twain’s lifetime, the best-selling Volume1 was published in 2010.  For as stipulated by Twain, his “complete, uncensored” autobiography was to remain unpublished for a century after his passing.  

An excerpt of Twain’s [Monday] June 11, 1906 writings speak to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake:

"The first hint of the disaster which had befallen San Francisco reached me in such an extravagant form that I took it for an impudent invention, and it did not hold my attention ten minutes. It came to me by telephonic message from a friend down in the city. He simply said: “San Francisco was destroyed by an earthquake at five o’clock this morning. Two thousand lives lost.” But by nightfall “extra” after “extra” began to appear and the news to take on the semblance of reality. Certain definite details were furnished. The next morning’s papers contained news of a convincing character—although there was not much of it, for the reason that the earthquake and the fire together had almost totally abolished railway and telegraphic communication with San Francisco from the outside." 

Published by the Mark Twain Project and the University of California Press, Volume 2 is edited by Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, with addition associate editors.  A podcast with Griffin follows: