There's a lot more to commend the AMT3 than the Ashcroft Lyon MS, of course, 
but that alone would be reason enough the buy the volume. After all the 
armchair psychology over the years, it's satisfying to finally read it 
first-hand and draw my own conclusions. Others may (and have in the past) 
drawn other conclusions, but it strikes me as the sincere writing of a man 
rightfully very angry and deeply hurt by a betrayal, at times a rant, of 
course, and sometimes spreading blame. It's not a work of fiction scribbled 
by a raving lunatic, but instead a form of self-therapy, a way of getting it 
off his chest without resorting to less healthy means like whiskey or 
violence. I too find it telling that Lyon returned some manuscripts and 
thereafter kept her mouth shut. I also find Jean's report of the 
confrontation at the Lobster Pot revealing--that Lyon was apologizing. The 
guilty often don't apologize for what they've done, but how often do the 
innocent apologize for something they did not do? I don't discount the 
insights offered by previous (and future) readers of this account--they are 
well worth reading--but for a balanced view I suggest every Twainian read 
the original and then review Michael Shelden's account in MT: Man in White.

I hope we all have Lyon's diaries to read some day. I think the key 1909 
volume is missing and what survives shows clear evidence of her revising her 
text in later years in interesting ways. It would be interesting to line 
them up side-by-side, in toto, including the dull sections on routine 
events, with all the other evidence.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com


-----Original Message----- 
From: Lee, Judith
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 12:10 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: web version of _Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3_

I got my copy of volume 3 last week and was thrilled to have it=8Band the
Ashcroft-Lyon manuscript=8Bat my fingertips.  Thanks to everyone at the MTP
for their outstanding scholarship=8Ba model for all of us, in my view!

Judith


Judith Yaross Lee
Editor, Studies in American Humor <http://studiesinamericanhumor.org/>

Charles E. Zumkehr Professor
& Director of Honors Tutorial Studies
School of  Communication Studies
Lasher Hall
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701





On 10/19/15, 11:48 AM, "Sharon K. Goetz" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>October sees the publication of the third and final volume of
>*Autobiography
>of Mark Twain*, chronicling the author's inner and outer life through a
>series of daily dictations that go wherever his fancy leads.
>
>Created from March 1907 to December 1909, these dictations present Mark
>Twain at the end of his life: receiving an honorary degree from Oxford
>University; railing against Theodore Roosevelt; founding numerous clubs;
>incredulous at an exhibition of the Holy Grail; credulous about the
>authorship of Shakespeare's plays; relaxing in Bermuda; observing (and
>investing in) new technologies. The *Autobiography*'s "Closing Words"
>movingly commemorate his daughter Jean, who died on Christmas Eve 1909.
>Also included in this volume is the previously unpublished "Ashcroft-Lyon
>Manuscript," Mark Twain's caustic indictment of his "putrescent pair" of
>secretaries and the havoc that erupted in his house during their
>residency.
>
>Only partially published up to now, the whole *Autobiography of Mark
>Twain*
>has been critically reconstructed and fully annotated by the editors of
>the
>Mark Twain Project. At last it is made available as it was intended to be
>read.
>
>The text of all three volumes, with annotations and full critical
>apparatus, is available at marktwainproject.org (no fee). Direct link to
>volume 3: http://bit.ly/automt3
>
>Print and epub are available from University of California Press:
>http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=3D9780520279940
>
>
>Sharon Goetz
>
>--=20
>Digital Publications Manager, Mark Twain Papers & Project
>http://www.marktwainproject.org/ http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/MTP/
>http://twitter.com/mtpo