Twain biography a publishing sensation

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: He might have been dead for a century, but Mark Twain has just published a new best seller.

When the creator of Huckleberry Finn wrote his autobiography he insisted that it not be released until the 100th anniversary of his death.

North America correspondent Lisa Millar finds out whether it's been worth the wait.

LISA MILLAR, REPORTER: They've come from across the country to this tiny town to celebrate an anniversary. The guest of honour is only here in spirit, but he's the bond that has brought them together.

(Start play excerpt)

ACTORS: One Mississippi, two Mississippi.

ACTOR 2: Put me down. I mean it, fellas, put me down!

ACTOR 2: I'm serious when I say I'm going to come back and find you.

ACTRESS: My mamma says when it comes to men, talk is cheap.

(end excerpt)

LISA MILLAR: It's day one of the Mark Twain Motherload Festival and the play, written by one of is biographers, is a hit.

ACTOR (off camera): Beautiful acting, where did you learn to play like that?

ACTOR WALKING DOWN CORRIDOR: Why, hello there.

ANDREW REA, ACTOR: The literature is as relevant today as I think it was then.

The river is still a huge part of life and the American sort of spirit is sort of all over his work.

SALLY FOSTER, ACTOR: I think it's in the legacy of the words that he left us on paper, and the hunger maybe that we have for a sense of our own country and our own experiences.

LISA MILLAR: This is Angel's Camp, population 3,800. It was once the hub of the California goldmining boom and for a short time home to the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. 

It was here Mark Twain wrote The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and the town has claimed him ever since. 

In fact, they're presenting the inaugural Mark Twain Award this weekend and who better to receive it than Mark Twain himself.

MARK TWAIN IMPERSONATOR: Well, I was born modest, but it wore off.

I tell people who want to write, write without pay until someone offers you pay, and if no-one offers within three years, then cutting wood is what you're intended for.

(laughter)

Thank you ever so much.

LISA MILLAR: This is what they've come for, with the first public glimpse of his long awaited autobiography. The Twainiacks have waited 100 years for these words from their idol and they're snapping it up. Delaying its publication gave him freedom to be frank about politics, religion and his observations of supposed friends.

VIC FISCHER, AUTOBIOGRAPHY EDITOR: Well Mark Twain was very worried about saying things that would offend living people.

LISA MILLAR: And that's why he put the 100 year...

VIC FISCHER: ...yes, yes and also he didn't want to be ostracised and he was so angry at Christianity and the kind of wars that were, the destruction and the murder that was done in the name of that religion.

LISA MILLAR: He slams America's imperialism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's critical of then president Theodore Roosevelt. He describes patriotism as the refuge of the scoundrel and makes public his doubts about God

RON POWERS, BIOGRAPHER: Mark Twain has not been treated all that kindly by his scholars and biographers. There has been a very curious aura of scepticism about him that pervaded over the last 100 years of writing about him. It's almost as though American intellectuals don't want to bestow too much praise on a guy who never got tenure and yet wrote better than they did.

LISA MILLAR: Born Samuel Clemens in 1835, Mark Twain was a printer, a journalist, a steam boat pilot, even a confederate soldier until he deserted, hiding out in Angels Camp where he returned to writing.

And it's here that fans have flocked in the hunt for the autobiography.

NIOMA PATRICK, MUSEUM CLER: Everybody is ecstatic about that. The phones have been ringing off the hook, everybody's asked me about it "what do you mean you don't have it for sale right now?" I said "I can't do that".

LISA MILLAR: For those who miss out on the book, impersonators give them the next best thing.

MARK TWAIN IMPERSONATOR: I travel across this great land of hours and the schools and I try to remind them the man who does not read good books has no advantage of the man who cannot read them.

LISA MILLAR: The release of this autobiography isn't the end of the story. In fact, there are two more volumes to come and inside this library here at Berkeley, a team of editors is literally being swamped by the amount of material still turning up.

Bob, this is like an Aladdin's cave for Mark Twain fans?

BOB HIRST, MARK TWAIN PROJECT EDITOR: Yes, it is, like for us as well.

LISA MILLAR: You call it The Vault?

BOB HIRST: We call it The Vault.

LISA MILLAR: It was here that Bob Hirst and his team sorted through thousands of letters and journals, diaries and books to painstakingly compile the autobiography the way the author intended. 

This is actually it, this is the autobiography?

BOB HIRST: Well this is the very first piece of it. These are the manuscript pages that he wrote in mid 1906 after he's been dictating for a few months...

LISA MILLAR: Following his instructions, though, wasn't easy. 

This is the extraordinary challenge that you must have faced. What does a piece of paper saying "please insert the other 44 pages" mean to you?

BOB HIRST: Well, I mean, you have to start looking for what he is referring to. This is particularly challenging because we now know that these 44 pages don't exist anymore.

MARK TWAIN INTERPRETOR (Signing books): In case you can't read my hand.

LISA MILLAR: With the first volume flying off the shelves, work continues on the next two. 

Mark Twain once had to reassure friends reports of his death were an exaggeration, but even in death, his reputation as one of America's greatest writers has been sealed.

Lisa Millar, Lateline.