Mark Twain wrote his massive autobiography just before he died, but instructed that it not be published until he’d been dead for a century.
He died in 1910. Guess what time it is?
The first volume is due out in November, but here’s a juicy excerpt:
About once a year some pious public library banishes Huck Finn from its children’s department, and on the same plea always — that Huck, the neglected and untaught son of a town drunkard, is given to lying, when in difficulty and hard pressed, and is therefore a bad example for young people, and a damager of their morals.
Two or three years ago I was near by when one of these banishments was decreed and advertised, and I went over and asked the librarian about it, and he said yes, Huck was banished for lying. I asked,
“Is there nothing else against him?”
“No, I think not.”
“Do you banish all books that are likely to defile young morals, or do you stop with Huck?”
“We do not discriminate; we banish all that are hurtful to young morals.”
I picked up a book, and said—-
“I see several copies of this book lying around. Are the young forbidden to read it?”
“The Bible? Of course not.”
(Of course nowadays Adventures of Huckleberry Finn gets censored and removed from school libraries because of Huck’s use of a then-common word: “nigger”.)
I can hardly wait for this one to come out.
Toward a Moral Life 