Autobiography of Mark Twain (10 page)

FIGURE 2
. Manuscript page 1, Clemens’s title page.

FIGURE 3
. Manuscript page 2, the “Early Attempt” preface introducing the “44 old type-written pages.”

FIGURE 4
. Manuscript page 3, the instruction to insert what has now been identified as “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It].”

FIGURE 5
. Manuscript page 45, the first page of “The Latest Attempt” preface, numbered to continue the sequence after the inserted forty-four-page typescript. (The page number 9, and the numbers 10–17 on the following pages, were all added by Paine in pencil and were not part of Clemens’s plan.)

FIGURE 6
. Manuscript page 46, the second page of “The Latest Attempt” preface.

FIGURE 7
. Manuscript page 47, “THE FINAL (& RIGHT) PLAN,” originally placed immediately before the page inscribed with “Here begin the Florentine Dictations” (shown in
figure 13
).

FIGURE 8
. The typed epigraph. In an earlier version, Clemens had deleted the title “A Text For All Biographies,” and added, “I will construct a text”; here he inserted “to precede the Autobiography; also a Preface, to follow said Text” and “(which are but the mute articulation of his
feelings
.)” He placed the page after “THE FINAL (& RIGHT) PLAN,” where it was transcribed in TS4. Clemens wrote “All usable” and “
SMALL TYPE
to save space” in the margin. The circled “I” in the top margin may have been written by either Clemens or Paine. The other writing on the page is Paine’s.

FIGURE 9
. Manuscript page 48,
“PREFACE
. As from the Grave.” This page and the three that follow were first numbered 1–4. When Clemens inserted them into the sequence after page 47, he renumbered them 48–51. He moved the page originally numbered 48, containing “Here begin the Florentine Dictations,” to the end and renumbered it 52 (
figure 13
).

FIGURE 10
. Manuscript page 49, the second page of “As from the Grave,” first numbered 2 and later changed to 49. Clemens initially ended the preface at the bottom of this page, then canceled his signature and added two more sections.