Mark Twain’s Autobiography.

TWAIN, Mark. [Samuel Clemens].

Item Number: 128186

New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1924.

First edition of Twain’s famed autobiography. Octavo, two volumes, original cloth, tissue-guarded frontispiece portrait of Twain to each volume. Stated “First Edition” with “H-Y” on the copyright page. BAL 3537. Introduction by Alfred Bigelow Paine. From the library of Oliver Safir with his signed bookplate to each pastedown and, subsequently, from the library of his son, William Safire, although not marked. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and supported him again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. In very good condition. With a later printing of Mark Twain’s (Burlesque ) Autobiography laid in [Cleveland: The Ormeril Company, 1910].

Mark Twain's Autobiography constitutes a lengthy set of reminiscences, dictated, for the most part, in the final years of his life and and left in both typescript and manuscript at his death. In his Preface: As From the Grave, he celebrated that the posthumous publication of this work allowed him to speak with his "whole frank mind", indeed, he states: "It has seemed to me that I could be as frank and free and unembarrassed as a love letter if I knew that what I was writing would be exposed to no eye until I was dear, and unaware, and indifferent."