mark twain. the trilogy.

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. – Mark Twain

There’s a photo of me unwrapping Christmas presents, hands to head, squealing in excitement. I remember being tickled to death at my gifts but if The Euro had not caught it on camera I would have sworn he exaggerated. In addition to a new “Christmas Carol” illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith, there was Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”, Roberto Bolano’s “2666” – which I can never manage to check out from the library long enough to finish – and “The Autobiography of Mark Twain” (Volume I).

For the few earthly individuals who don’t already know, when Mark Twain died in 1910 he left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs together with a handwritten note not to publish them for at least a century. The Manuscripts have been held in a vault at the University of California, Berkley, and until now only academics, biographers, and members of the public prepared to travel to the university’s Bancroft research library have been able to read it in full. The first volume was released in November and most bookstores, Amazon included, sold out as soon as.

Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted 100 years between himself and his memoirs. Some believe he wanted to talk freely about his views on politics and religions. Others, that he didn’t want to offend any of his friends. And still others, that he liked the drama of it all and didn’t want us to forget him. “When people ask me,” said Robert Hirst, who is leading the team at Berkeley editing the complete text, “‘did Mark Twain really mean it to take 100 years for this to come out’, I say ‘he was certainly a man who knew how to make people want to buy a book’.”

The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words.