Dear David & Fellow Twainians who have an interest in this topic~ Albert Bigelow Paine's 1912 biography contains what you are looking for, it was written in 1910. Under the chapter "The Voyage home" (page 1566, volume 3 of the 3 volume edition), Paine describes it as "the last bit of continued writing he ever did", and referred to it as "Advice." Actually it isn't Mark Twain's last handwritten manuscript, as that is in reality a humorous writing he wrote to angelfish Helen Allen just before departing Bermuda in April 1910 (in my private collection, soon to be written about in my forthcoming website www.MarkTwainCollector.com). You may find it of interest that Mark Twain wrote about his doubts regarding the afterlife in a poem to Mrs. Thomas K. Beecher (the wife of the very minister who presided over the Sam & Livy Clemens wedding ceremony). As Paine's 1912 biography on page 1001 volume 2 explains, Mrs. Beecher presented Twain with three flat stones to write an agreement between them. Mrs. Beecher's position was there was an afterlife, Twain's that there wasn't any. It is so short I'll just go ahead and type it up here from the original draft copy in my private collection to correct a few errors in Paine's transcription: "If you prove right and I prove wrong A million years from now, In language plain and frank and strong My error I'll avow To your dear mocking face. If I prove right, by God His grace Full sorry I shall be, For in that solitude no trace There'll be of you and me Nor of our vanished race. A million years, O patient stone, Youv'e waited for this message: Deliver it, a million hence. [survivor pays expressage.] M. T. July 2, 1895 NOTE: the original stones are in the collection of Elmira College, presented to them in 1962. See Mark Twain in Elmira by Jerome & Wisbey for an illustration and more information. -- I understand this book is currently being updated and is going to be reissued by Elmira College in the near future. Of course, Mark Twain also believed in the possibility of an afterlife , and actually helped people in their own attempts to contact loved ones from beyond the grave. Twain himself encountered several first hand experiences of mental telepathy and death, and even an experience of his daughter Jean's communication with him after her death. Therefore, before Twain came to have his turn, it is evident he gave the afterlife at least a 50% chance of being true. Twainiacally Yours, Bob