Some History on the Autobiography

So I did a little bit of research on the publication history of the Autobiography and I found a few things that I didn't know before (and some things that we did know already):

• The prefatory note that's seen in the NAR version is also seen in the print version.
• Not meant to be published until after the author's death because of the entries about people still living.
• Some sections were decided to be allowed publish in the NAR after Twain returned from "Pier No. 70".
• Twain purposefully wrote out of order.
• Wanted the autobiography to "deal mostly in the common experience".
• He told Howells that he wanted to continue writing the memoirs until his death and would create volumes upon volumes of the Autobiography.
• Was published in two volumes in 1924, 14 years after his death.
• edited by Albert Paine
• Published in one volume in 1959 by Charles Neider
• Neider edited it to "make sense of it", putting passages in chronological order- omitting "awkward passages".

I thought it was very interesting that the editors had such a strong role in the book version. They were able to pick and choose passages to include in the book. This takes away from Twain's original goal of having an autobiography that has never been seen before- one that had no order or system.

Helpful resources:

http://online-literature.com/twain/my-autobiography/0/
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/twainbio.html