Some time ago, and bought the Kindle edition of the newly released mark Twain autobiography.

it’s a little scary at first, because it leads in by way of repeating some of the information available in previous abortive autobiographies. There’s also a half a book of self congratulatory nonsense about how the authors of this edition finally got it right and ddi it the way Twain would have wanted; I expect he would have chosen to leave out their crap, had he a choice.

Once you get into the meat of things, though, there’s a serious payoff.

An example, without spoiling things too much for anyone: Twain rents an Italian villa in which to allow his ailing wife to convalesce. The woman from whom he rents the villa is a monster, and he heaps snark on her the likes of which nobody then had ever imagines; it’s industrial grade snark today. I won’t sample any of it, you must acquire it yourself, you must put it in your own head, you must wrap your tongue around it’s savory goodness and drink deeply of it.

Do it. If you ever liked any twain, do it. It’s like reading the dead sea scrolls firsthand, it’s like having a psychic connection to P.J. O’Rourke. It’s like having a private conversation with Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He’d have done all the talking anyway.