The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-09
TWAIN.S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

| Since men first began to write about themselves, autobiography has had an important place in literature and as an authentic record of interesting person. alities, valuable alike for the light it throws on the writer himself and the history of the times in which he lives. There have been thousands of auto biographies written, the great majority of them, alas, speedily forgotten. Yet | it is doubtful if any work of this kind | is richer in those qualities that make the chronicles of mems lives so we'll worth reading as is the autobiography of Mark Twain, recently published.
 Here is series of rambling, disjointed eminiscences that follow no definite plan. Probably no other book ever was written in just the way Twain dictated the recol- lections of a long and useful life. If Something he read in his morning news paper suggested a past experience, that was sufficient to start him off. To those precise persons whose minds rebel at some of the habits of a Mark Twain, this auto biography may seem almost waste of time and effort, but those millions-and how many millions there must be by this time !-who love Mark Twain, will find his autobiography a wonderful and a satisfying book.
 l Mark Twain was one of the most "human" persons who ever lived. He could set down little in his books that did not suggest h;s own vigorous and colorful personality. No man could have written "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckle- berry Finn" without having rich back ground of personal experience to draw upon. And so it is with Marks auto biography. Of course here he is writing frankly of himself, and there is no pre- tense of fictionizing. Mark does not wear the name of Tom Sawyer as a disguise.
 Mark Twain's autobiography, with held fourteen years after his death, is not only a unique piece of work itself, but it comes to us as vivid reminder of an American who lowered about his contemporaries and is the nations best loved author. Humanity draws com fort and inspiration, wisdom and ad- vice from the printed word, but not the least of the heritage left to his readers by a great author is entertainment. Twain was both philosopher and a humorist. Were Twain only humorist he would not occupy the position he holds today in literature; nor would he be as popular, nor as we'll beloved. He found much to laugh at in the foibles of mankind, and he did laugh often, but he knew tragedy, too. Life seasoned and mellowed him, as the sunshine and the showers do some fine old oak.
 We have produced only one Mark Twain, and the probabilities are that we shall never produce another. He had no literary ancestors, in America, and left no heirs. Every nation, as it ad- vances through the successive stages of civilization, produces from time to time an author who adds lustre to that na- ton by the fidelity with which he depicts racial and national characteristics.
 It is good to know that Mark Twain is still holding his popularity, and that he promises to retain it for long time to come. Thrice blessed are those who are yet to make his acquaintance, for if there is any pleasure of the mind that surpasses the first youthful reading of "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer we don't know what it is.