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Mark Twain To Reveal All After 100 Year Wait
Hugh Pickens writes "The Independent reports that one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published one hundred years after his death. Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century, but in November, the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's three-volume autobiography. Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted his autobiography kept under wraps for so long, with some believing it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image. 'He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines,' says Shelden. '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.' Interestingly enough, Twain had a cunning plan to beat the early 20th century copyright law with its short copyright terms. Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."
I don't know. I always thought Carl was cooler than Lenny.
Please don't read the rest of this post until a hundred years after I'm dead.
-----No reading below this point-----
You all suck.
Cheers,
-----No reading above this point (in case you're reading this upside down while you drive in circles with an IPad on the steering wheel).-----
We finally get to hear his side of the story of meeting Guinan and Data.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Can't all be Jesus
"Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."
So George Lucas didn't come up with this first. Not that it makes it ok.
Sadly he didn't secure a business model patent.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
I'm not sure, but judging by the history of copyright laws I'd say no one/public, or Disney.
This is actually his "spoilers" on the "Lost" show. He was the original author of that too, but didn't want it to be shown on TV until now. He was too ashamed to admit that he wrote something that bad while he was alive.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
There's no reference to water polo in his biographer's homepage.
Most probably because his prowess was such that any mention would steer the biography away from the purely "math guy" approach.
As I understand it Alan Turing did try water polo once but he pleaded with the powers the be that the sorrowful occasion be omitted from all records as it was such an unmitigated disaster. The horse drowned.
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
All I've been saying since the late 90's is that George Lucas wasn't that original with bonus content re-releases.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
A reason that copyright extends past death is to discourage murder to get access to copyrighted material.
That sounds more like a movie-plot risk than a serious concern.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I think I read that one, but the only line that I can remember from it is, "a miserable pile of secrets."
What's wrong with wanting to take care of your children? Some publisher is going to continue to profit from his work, regardless, so why not let his family benefit, too?
I suppose the Germans didn't bomb Pearl Habour?
Jonathanjk.com