it took me only TWO years!
It took me only TWO years to read "Autobiography of Mark Twain," volume 1, published in 2010 and edited by Harriet Elinor Smith. Why? Because it's huge!
You'll remember when it was published, that Twain had requested his autobiography not be available until 100 years after his death. I can see why. Clemens really never got it organized, and so the Mark Twain Papers in Berkeley that had all his writings spent decades researching it and arranging his notes. The autobiography itself is not chronological nor even arranged topically.
The book is 760 pages long, and it's a larger size hardback, 7 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches. What takes so long to read isn't the autobiography but everything else. There are a list of manuscripts, the introduction, which includes photos of some of his handwritten pages, and preliminary dictations. The autobiography itself doesn't start until page 201! The footnotes and other writings begin on page 469.
This isn't to say that the book wasn't entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed the autobiography itself, and even the footnotes were interesting. The first two sections really ramble and I would advise skipping them.
I can't imagine what volume 2 might look like, or when it will be published.
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