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