Publishing History About To Be Made

[6charlong]

A few years before he died Samuel Clemens finished a massive autobiography. He wrote to a friend at the time that he is going to give it away--but with a catch. It was not published at the time and he left a directive in his will that it was not to be published for 100 years. Mark Twain died in 1910 and the executor of his estate just put The Autobiography of Mark Twain up for publication. The release date for the first volume is November 15, 2010.

Amazon has it for pre-order both as a Kindle and paper book edition. I pre-ordered a copy and thought some others might be interested.

[phenomshel]

Sounds interesting! On a separate but related (kind of) note: I picked up a library book by Peter J. Heck about Mark Twain solving mysteries. Not factual, but darn good reading! Matter of fact, I think I'll go see if they're available in ebook now...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

A few years before he died Samuel Clemens finished a massive autobiography. He wrote to a friend at the time that he is going to give it away--but with a catch. It was not published at the time and he left a directive in his will that it was not to be published for 100 years. Mark Twain died in 1910 and the executor of his estate just put The Autobiography of Mark Twain up for publication. The release date for the first volume is November 15, 2010.

Amazon has it for pre-order both as a Kindle and paper book edition. I pre-ordered a copy and thought some others might be interested.

Many portions of the autobiography have been published already. But this does seem to be an authoritative and complete version.

I see that the ebook is $25.75, a lot less than the hardback RRP of $34.95, but sadly more than the Amazon price of the hardback, $20.97!

In the UK the ebook is £16.50 — about the same as the US $25.75, but the hardback is much more expensive at £18.71 — about $29. (And an RRP of £24.95 — about $38!)

It does sound interesting, but I'll wait for the paperback, and then buy the ebook at a much lower price.

[SensualPoet]

... and the Kindle edition is $9.99 with text-to-speech enabled; and released on the same date: Nov 15, 2010. Bravo.

[bill_mchale]

Just a thought, but at this point, shouldn't the text that Twain wrote be in the Public domain? I mean commentary and footnotes might still be copyrighted, but somebody should be able to upload the actual text itself up onto PG in fairly short order.

--
Bill

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Just a thought, but at this point, shouldn't the text that Twain wrote be in the Public domain? I mean commentary and footnotes might still be copyrighted, but somebody should be able to upload the actual text itself up onto PG in fairly short order.

This depends on where you are.

USA: Those bits never previously published are out of copyright. Any bits that have previously been published might still be in copyright, conceivably until 2072.

Canada: Those bits never previously published are out of copyright. Any bits that have previously been published will still be in copyright, if they were first published between about 1960 and 1997. I suspect that all that was published before 1997 was also published before 1960, but it would need careful checking.

UK: In copyright until 2040

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Just a thought, but at this point, shouldn't the text that Twain wrote be in the Public domain? I mean commentary and footnotes might still be copyrighted, but somebody should be able to upload the actual text itself up onto PG in fairly short order.

--
Bill

Posthumous publication involves very complex copyright laws. It varies drastically from country to country.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Many portions of the autobiography have been published already. But this does seem to be an authoritative and complete version.

Twain's autobiography has been published but it has been in expurgated form. Twain put the clause in his will because he believed, among other things, that it was too racy to be published as he wrote it for the time. What he did allow to be published was heavily edited to fit sensibilities of the times. Twain figured that in 100 years the people he lampooned would be dead and editors would be more liberal.

The forthcoming version will ultimately be 3 volumes and will be as he wrote it -- salacious comments and all.

For those looking for souces other than Amazon, B&N also has it on preorder: hardcover is $23.58 and ebook is $15.40. It doesn't appear to be available yet at Sony.

[yakuzaboss]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

A few years before he died Samuel Clemens finished a massive autobiography. He wrote to a friend at the time that he is going to give it away--but with a catch. It was not published at the time and he left a directive in his will that it was not to be published for 100 years. Mark Twain died in 1910 and the executor of his estate just put The Autobiography of Mark Twain up for publication. The release date for the first volume is November 15, 2010.

Amazon has it for pre-order both as a Kindle and paper book edition. I pre-ordered a copy and thought some others might be interested.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm definitely pre-ordering a copy as well.