“The Latest Attempt”,
“The Final (and Right) Plan”,
“Preface. As from the Grave”Ⓔexplanatory note
Finally,Ⓐapparatus note in Florence in 1904, I hit upon the right way to do an Autobiography: startⒶapparatus note it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life; talk only about the thing which interestsⒶapparatus note you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale, and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting thing that has intrudedⒶapparatus note itself into your mind meantime.
Also, make the narrative a combined Diary and Autobiography. In this way you have the vivid thingsⒶapparatus note of the present to make a contrast with memories of like things in the past, and these contrasts have a charm which is all their own. No talent is required to make a combinedⒶapparatus note Diary and Autobiography interesting.
And so, I have found the right plan. It makes my laborⒶapparatus note amusement—mere amusement, play, pastime, and wholly effortless. It is the first time in history that the right plan has been hit upon.
I will construct a text—to precede the Autobiography; also a Preface, to follow said Text.Ⓐapparatus note
What a wee little part of a person’s life areⒶapparatus note his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings,)Ⓐapparatus note not those other things, are his history. His actsⒶapparatus note and his wordsⒶapparatus note are merely the visibleⒶapparatus note thin crust of his world, with [begin page 221] its scattered snow summits and its vacant wastes of water—and they are so trifling a part of his bulk!Ⓐapparatus note a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden—it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night norⒶapparatus note day. These are his lifeⒶapparatus note, and they are not written, and cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book of eighty thousand words—three hundred and sixty-five books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man—the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
In this Autobiography I shall keep in mind the fact that I am speaking from the grave. I am literallyⒶapparatus note speaking from the grave, because I shall be dead when the book issues from the press. At any rate—to be precise—nineteen-twentieths of the book will not see print until after my death.Ⓐapparatus note
I speak from the grave rather than with my living tongue, for a good reason: I can speak thenceⒶapparatus note freely. When a man is writing a book dealing with the privacies of his life—a bookⒶapparatus note which is to be read while he is still alive—Ⓐapparatus notehe shrinks from speaking his whole frankⒶapparatus note mind; all his attempts to do it fail, he recognizes that heⒶapparatus note is trying to do a thing which is wholly impossible to a human being. The frankest and freëstⒶapparatus note and privatestⒶapparatus note product of the human mind and heart is a love letterⒶapparatus note; the writerⒶapparatus note gets his limitless freedom of statement and expression from his sense that no stranger is going to see what he is writing. Sometimes there is a breach of promise case by and by;Ⓐapparatus note and when he sees his letter in print it makes him cruelly uncomfortable, and he perceives that he never would have unbosomed himself to that large and honest degree if he had known that he was writing for the public. He cannot find anything in the letter that was not true, honest, and respect-worthy; but no matter, he would have been very much more reserved if he had known he was writing for print.
It has seemed to me that I could be as frank and free and unembarrassed as a love letterⒶapparatus note if I knewⒶapparatus note that what I wasⒶapparatus note writing would be exposed to no eye until I was dead, and unaware,Ⓐapparatus note and indifferent.Ⓐapparatus note
II. Ⓐapparatus note
My editors, heirs and assigns are hereby instructed to leave out of the first edition all characterizations of friends and enemies that might wound the feelings of either the persons characterized or their families and kinship. This book is not a revenge-record. When I build a fire under a person in it, I do not do it merely because of the enjoyment I get out of seeing him fry, but because he is worth the trouble. It is then a compliment, a distinction; let him give thanks and keep quiet. I do not fry the small, the commonplace, the unworthy.
From the first, second, third and fourth editionsⒶapparatus note all sound and saneⒶapparatus note expressions of opinion must be left out. There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see.
[begin page 222]III. Ⓐapparatus note
The editions should be issued twenty-five years apart. Many things that must be left out of the first will be proper for the second; many things that must be left out of both will be proper for the third; into the fourth—or at least the fifth—Ⓐapparatus notethe whole Autobiography can go, unexpurgated.
Mark TwainⒶapparatus note
title The Latest Attempt . . . As from the Grave] This three-part preface, like the “Early Attempt” preface, was written in mid-1906. With the exception of the middle section, it survives in manuscript. The text “I will construct a text . . . cannot be written” is a 1906 typescript with Clemens’s insertions and revisions on it. The pages are all reproduced in facsimile in the Introduction (figures 5–12).
2. The Final (and Right) Plan. 3. Preface. As from
the Grave. ❉ Textual Commentary
Source documents.
MS Manuscript of 8 leaves, numbered 45–52: part 1, ‘The Latest . . . hit upon.’ (220 title–28); title only of part 2, ‘The Final (and Right) Plan’ (220 title); part 3, ‘Preface. As from the Grave . . . Mark Twain. | Here begin the Florentine Dictations.’ (221 title–222 title). (The MS pages are reproduced in facsimile in the Introduction, figures 5–7 and 9–13, pp. 37–39, 41–45.)TSa Typescript of a single leaf, numbered 1½ in Clemens’s hand, probably made from Hobby’s notes, and revised: text only of part 2, ‘I will . . . be written.’ (220.29–221.6).
TSb Typescript of 4 leaves, numbered a–d, made by Hobby and further revised (does not include part 1): part 2 was made from the revised TSa, ‘I will . . . be written.’ (220.29–221.6); part 3 was made from the MS, ‘Preface. As from the Grave . . . Mark Twain. | Here begin the Florentine Dictations.’ (221 title–222 title). (The first page of TSb is reproduced in facsimile in the Introduction, figure 8, p. 40.)
TS2 (lost) Typescript, leaves numbered 54–58; now lost.
TS4 Typescript, leaves numbered 61–65, the complete text of all three parts, made from three sources: part 1, ‘The Latest . . . hit upon.’ and the title of part 2, ‘The Final (and Right) Plan’, copied the MS, possibly through an intervening lost source; part 2, ‘I will . . . be written.’, was made from the revised TSa; part 3, ‘Preface . . . Florentine Dictations.’, was made from an unidentified source.
Clemens drafted this second preface for Autobiography of Mark Twain, as he did the first one (“An Early Attempt”), in June 1906. It is in three parts: ‘The Latest Attempt’, ‘The Final (and Right) Plan’, and ‘Preface. As from the Grave’. TS4—typed by an unidentified typist—is the only document that contains the entire three-part preface, which occurs in its pagination sequence after “John Hay,” which ends on page 60. In TS2, however, the five pages on which the prefaces presumably were typed (54–58) are now missing: they fall between “Random Extracts” (which ends on page 53) and the beginning of “John Hay” (which begins on page 59; see Contents and Pagination of TS2 and TS4). This is the only instance in which TS2 and TS4 do not agree in the order of their material. TS2, typed by Josephine Hobby under Clemens’s supervision, is the more authoritative text, and therefore its sequence is adopted, and the preface is placed before “John Hay,” the first Florentine Dictation. All of the variants in TS4 are reported because its genesis is not entirely clear: it includes text at the end—an introductory comment about “Notes on ‘Innocents Abroad’ ”—that does not appear in any other source (see the Textual Commentary for that piece).
The MS includes the first part of the preface, the title of the second part, and the third part of the preface. It is on the same cream wove paper as the title page and “An Early Attempt,” and was likewise written in black ink. Its pages were numbered 45–52, to follow the ‘44 old type-written pages’ of “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It].” MS page 52 contains only the words ‘Here begin the Florentine Dictations.’
Although the MS survives for the title of the second part of the preface, ‘The Final (and Right) Plan’, the earliest surviving source of the the text itself is TSa. A manuscript of an early draft of this text survives, but it was almost certainly not Hobby’s source. The variants between this early draft and TSa strongly suggest that she instead transcribed her notes of Clemens’s dictation. Here is the text of the draft, which Clemens wrote in 1902 in a pocket calendar for November 1901:
What a wee little part of a person’s life is his acts & his words! His real life is led in his head & is known to none but himself. All day long & every day the mill of his brain is grinding & his thoughts, not those other things, are his history. His acts & his words are merely the visible thin crust of his world, with its scattered snow-summits & its vacant wastes of water—& they are so trifling a part of his bulk! a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden—it & its volcanic fires that toss & boil & never rest, night or day. These are his life, & they are not written & cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book—80,000 words; 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes & buttons of the man; the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
TSa reads ‘part of his book’ instead of ‘part of his bulk’—an error that most likely resulted from Hobby’s mishearing of Clemens’s speech. (Clemens corrected ‘book’ to ‘bulk’ on TSa.) Other variants between the early draft and TSa also suggest that Hobby did not transcribe a manuscript. Clemens added the page number 1½ at the top of TSa, apparently intending to insert it after his title page, on MS page 1. After he revised TSa, Hobby retyped it and followed it with the rest of the MS text, ‘Preface . . . Dictations.’ In the MS, nothing intervenes between the heading ‘The Final (and Right) Plan’ and the third part of the preface. TSb and TS4 (which derives from the revised TSa and does not capture the revisions on TSb) confirm that Clemens inserted the text of the second part (‘I will . . . be written.’) under the title, where it appears in this edition. At the top of ‘Preface. As from the Grave’ in TSb, Clemens wrote in the margin, ‘small type’ and ‘small type, to save space’, repeating the instruction on every subsequent page.
The third part, ‘Preface. As from the Grave’, is a much-expanded version of a draft that Clemens wrote on the typescript of the title page for Autobiography of Mark Twain. The draft reads:
To heirs and assigns:
1. Whereas about a twentieth part of this Autobiography can be published (in serial form, not in book form) while I am alive, no large portion of it must see print in any form during my lifetime.
2. Words of mine which can wound the living must wait until later editions. This book is not a revenge-record.
3. It will be seen noticed that I have marked certain chapters which are to be kept suppressed, sealed up, and unprinted for a hundred years. These must not be shown to any one, but kept sealed—as I shall leave them.
On the last page of TS4 (65)—below ‘Here begin the Florentine Dictations.’—is an explanatory remark found in no other source: ‘To precede A. A. | This will concern my life where it departs from “Old Times on the Mississippi,” and enters upon the life recorded in “Roughing It.” ’ The designation ‘A. A.’ (otherwise unexplained) appears on both TS2 and TS4 above the title of “Notes on ‘Innocents Abroad.’ ” Although it is possible that Clemens intended this note to ‘precede’ that dictation, it seems more likely to be a memorandum or instruction that refers to an abandoned idea.