and they served well. they stayed at their post, and they did their jobs as well as any man. that -- that photo was taken in the first reunion. it took 40 years to get them together as a group, and that was taken in 1983 at a va reunion. these women showed us that the idea of courage and bravery is certainly genderless, and they tell us that women alone can survive in the worst of worst circumstances. c-span: what's different for women today in the military who are in the nurse corps than it was back in world war ii? >> guest: there's so much that's changed. the reliance on the reserve corps now as -- to -- to carry a lot of the mission in wartime, and also at that time the nurses were all female. and at this point, the military nurse corps are about a quarter male nurses, and that certainly changes things. c-span: did you ever serve in the military? >> guest: i did not, and that's a question everybody asks me. but i didn't. it's just through my parents, through my husband, michael, i just have an abiding interest in it. c-span: and what do you think the military can learn from reading this?

>> guest: i think the military could -- there are great lessons here about preparedness. there are great lessons here about the ability of troops to survive and fight with very little. and also, one of the things is when these people come out of these experiences -- and we are better now than we used to be -- to help these people readjust to civilian life and to freedom. ..

>> robert cayman to uc-berkeley when he was a student. four years later people see the promise and offer the job. he has been there ever since. 1949 the granddaughter of mark twain gave uc-berkeley

material for the archive and and 1980 he became the general editor of the archives and in 2005 and they begin the process of putting together the first volume and i know many of you who have seen. there will be three volumes and there is a tremendous amount of excitement associated which use the press and all of us to love the role mark twain has played in culture to know that half a million copies have already been sold. it is on "the new york times" bestsellers list where it has been for 19 weeks, a longtime and i am really delighted we have robert year to tell us even more. [applause]

lahood. >> how thank you for the introduction. it reminds me of the way mark twain said how he was introduced in california 140 years ago, he was on one of the first lecture tour it in california. never published a book. nobody knew him. but the red dog's. but finally the crowd persuaded a big minor to get up on the stage to do the honors. he stood thinking for a moment and said i don't know anything about this fellow.

[laughter] but two things. one is he has not been in the penitentiary her. [laughter] and the other is i don't know why her. [laughter] mark twain said he like that because it did not raise expectations too high. [laughter] mark twain's official biographer put that in because he did not know that mark twain had cut it out. i will balance with so little story of what is in the autobiography. this is the end of how mark twain escapes a dual that he had instigated in virginia city and is at the challenges and didn't know anything about how to shoot a pistol. this is how the story and

spur growth i never had anything to do with a dual cents. i disapprove of them. i consider them unwise and i know they are dangerous. if a man should challenge me now i would go to the man and take him kindly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him. [laughter] i should have done this at the start he was a very disciplined public speaker and i am not. i think it is a general rule if you ask an editor to talk to the problem is to get him to stop. it is the anti-filibuster device. this comes with me. i will cite mark twain's own advice. he was going on a lecture tour and was afraid that

riley would take too long for his half of the program cutting into mark twain's time making the audience impatient than they would go home so in his notebook there was a little introduction. i will talk until i am tired and then mr. lyonnais will talk until you are tired. [laughter] we will try talking that way. i promise when this goes off, it would be very hard to persuade me to say anything else. what is so special about this autobiography? mark twain tried to find a way to write his autobiography. that is a long time even for him. you could easily spend six or seven or eight years on

his books in what is remarkable about him is that he knew very early on is how he wanted the autobiography to be constructed. and then you see in the background pieces of the manuscript that belong to the autobiography tax stand here is a few more. i will leave these years you can consequent days contemplate them. this is what was said in 1846 having a conversation in which she said he proceeded to talk about the autobiography that he intends to write as sincerely as possible but his wife laughingly said she should look it over and leave out objectionable passages. no. you are not to edit it. it is to appear as it has been written the whole tale

told as i could tell it is. i shall take out passages and public negative i go along in the atlantic but i shall not limit myself as to space and at whatever age even if i am an infant and an idea comes to be about myself when i am 40 i shall put it in. it still amazes me when i read that paragraph just how clearly mark twain knew what he wanted to do. at least 30 years after he started to do it. there are roughly two dozen isolated chapters from 1904 with the period of 35 years and a struggle to give up four relinquish a chronological organization.

something that people would assume is the organizational principle for the autobiography and mike -- mark twain was struggling to leave that behind him. who then the drafts that we have each seem inadequate. and stopped writing more chapters but did not throw them away. very typical. but 1904 shortly before his wife's death mark twain settled on dictation as a way to compose his text. but not it dictation and cradle to grave narrative come it would have special character that is the right way to do an autobiography which is to start at no particular time manulife and wonder at your free will all over your life. talk only about the thing which interest you at the moment. drop but at the moment the interest pales and then talk

about a new and more interesting fate that has intruded itself in your mind. two years later 1906 that is what it began to swing. dictating to a stenographer and typist. for two or three or four hours in the morning a couple times per week. she would tie but his notes almost immediately and give them to cleamons who delayed reading them for several months wanting to wait and see if this would work out. the process continued without interruption is through 1906/1907 than in 1908/1909 and concluded december 24th when his youngest daughter jean died in the bathtub and he wrote to a memorial to her that he

you said the end of the autobiography. after contributing 630,000 words he himself was dead and after the elements of such text as you can imagine in 1876. there he is on the porch in new hampshire where a lot of the dictation occurred. and here he is in bad also where a lot of the dictation occurred. he was very relaxed. and susan mentions the fact this publication has an unusual history for those of us who are involved in a scholarly edition of mark twain going on since 1967. seven baller two scammed last week new york times' list but this sunday will be

the 20th week on the list. it is around 70 last week was about 14. and their 500,000 copies not necessarily sold but printed out there. to give you an idea, now there would be 2,000 copies and expect to sell them over 10 years. this is a new game. an absolutely new game. in any case. all of the autobiographies are at berkeley. only a very few are another institutions possibly because paine gave them away. they have been there since mark twain put them in the paper in 1910. in what sense is it necessary to find mark

twain's autobiography? you cannot find something that has not been lost for pro what are the mark twain papers? why do they exist? and why are they in berkeley? i try to answer that question before i do that i have to do more on the recent publication. already being awarded the prices from the american publishers association, it is interesting we have never won this price before and the award was given in the number of copies sold. i cannot be sure. mark twain said 1908 that he would start a new hobby and collect complements the way other people collect courses and autographs. this is all the compliments he collected and cut it out

of the newspaper. and all of the handwriting on there is mark twain. and a complement is an american loves his family if he has any love left over for some other person he generally selects mark twain. he says i think the world of that complement. [laughter] yes he does. here is another one that he cited in the same speech that i refer to. i have given you a transcription side by side of the handwriting is not clear you can follow it. little montana growth, he said somebody from illinois send this to him. gazing thoughtfully at a photograph under the

mantelpiece and then said we have a cheeses like that at home only hours has more trimmings. [laughter] what did she mean by that? [laughter] for those of you who forgot which uses like my pulled a copy of one of the family bibles. mark twain's is the difference was a halo. but his had not arrived yet. [laughter] >> this is a way to say mark twain had in his own lifetime 80 nervous silence audience which is a submerged audience that did not go to bookstores that was not like you and me and illiterate going to lectures but brought his books on a loyal basis and a submerged

clientele to discuss this 1888 when they sit in the sun in new york city. the story is told in the autobiography. and they would agree this kind of thing that comes from where we have never met what is of all the kinds of things, the very best. something like that is operating with people by mark twain's have the first volume of the autobiography. that audience comes into view in a way that we have never seen in my lifetime. we did not expect this as you know, . their original estimate on my part was 10,000 copies that would be five times what we normally cellpro or print.

the press is on public record as saying that we thought maybe 100,000 copies would be it. and i remember in discussing the photograph it should be on the front of the jacket the people saying they could see something particularly eye-catching that could lead off the remains. [laughter] and thought that was rather discouraging. [laughter] so we thought it would be good to document that those are brand new copies that we have never seen before. we did do certain things to sell this book we would not ordinarily do. [laughter] we sold to various magazines

and atlantic and harbors and playboy for first serial rights these are small chunks of the autobiography all they needed to be was short, unpublished and funny. that was easy. playboy got one but not everybody approves of the autobiography. perhaps the most famous comes from -- and i promised eight advertisement to address what they had to say. also it is all little easier to follow and quotes coming here is a powerful argument for writers to burn their papers. further down. think twice about putting your papers to an institution of higher learning. as a famous writer some day it could be used against you.

i think it is clear he does not like the autobiography and it is clear he has not read it very carefully. he encounters without acknowledging that but is the one thing i want to say publicly is that it is good advice not to give your papers to institution like this. otherwise you may end up with the best seller with 500,000 copies being sold 100 years after you are dead. or not. they simply had no patience with academic overkill in for that reason they misread the first half of the book and are unaware that less than one-third of the autobiography is in this volume for coca that is so because the volume has to

begin with the preliminary experiments things that you're rejected between 1870 and 1904. in this volume there is only three months of dictation january 1906 thing going on for another three years. it is harsh to be them mark twain autobiography on that sample. i do think the dealer times which published an editorial about this the have never seen them review a book before this, i think they were right. mark twain is terrific company he knew everyone and seem to be interested and capable of making "the reader" in 2010 laugh at nearly every page. this is not an autobiography of the system he finally

found for doing so is perfect and twain talks about what he is interested in until he no longer is then talks about something else wondering free will all over your life. this is lowered dipping and not plunging and read it until interest fails then jump. it feels like a form of time travel when mature on horseback with a cigar in your mouth then we can hardly wait for volume to and if you want more positive comments on those negative reduce they comment on both of those and comes down on the side of the old gray lady that mark twain himself would not have been faced by these criticisms

and says in the autobiography i believe the literature of drama is the most degrading of all trades and has no real value and no large value however lets it go. it is the will of god to have critics and missionaries and congressmen and humorous and bear the burden in the meantime. he was steady in the view of critics when asked by his older brother to read another compositions he refused saying the great public, the only opinion worth having is just another way to refer to the audience. allow me to leave those critics behind to talk more about the papers. you can see from this lighted is just a little section from the letter that

mark twain got into that have it to right things you is quite confident he could not published in his lifetime to put them in his large blocks of posthumous stuff for a large stack of this literature remains. so there is roughly 8700 manuscripts and many of them brief most of them are. but some of them are quite good not unpublished because there were babbitt other circumstances and that is the core of the march rain papers. but it is not something you can easily talk about so i will have another tactic for talking about what is in the papers because there is all kinds of stuff. if this is overwhelming

there is 10,000 limitation letters, manuscripts, working knows for huck finn, this is a bookplate he makes 1848 the earliest known document and a sample of his hair. checks and bills and clipping this and proves, photographs come on and on. those are all things that are not literary manuscripts or not the main core of the paper but in my view a way of understanding how we grasp mark twain and the fact that he left this behind. it is very unusual for writer to be willing to leave all unpublished manuscripts and graphs not to mention the checks how

much beer he drank so it is very unusual for an author in my opinion or unique to leave that evidence behind. mark twain said he could imagine being dead. mostly looking down from summer or up from somewhere and see reading the autobiography. that he said no. i a tried this 2 billion years before i was born and i am sure i will like it when i die. he is quite willing for you to see this. he may be an easy but quite willing. there is a parallel between that kind of bravery and the publication of the autobiography. i am just going into a few details of things that are in there so you get a sense

of what the paper is four. this is the earliest known image "the apprentice" printer saying he is holding a stack with the letter say and in it to identify him. that bookplate is used as an exercise to set up advertisements for the newspaper. the interesting thing is that literally serious thing he put his hand to and it was in the papers since the beginning but not discovered until 1984. that aspect is quite remarkable we're still finding things we did not know that we had. this is a late photograph and mark twain is coming from bermuda and there is

another photograph described as a practical joke. it is not a practical joke. mark twain had commissioned his protegee commented to do a bus that was photographed four "huckleberry finn." and if you want to get the knack right, mark twain goes to the photographer who usually photographs nudes and has this picture taken some of the sculptor can make the bus. i would say his brother was funny so he keeps it and probably the only unique photograph of him anywhere. this is an example of what we have. [laughter] i put it in because it requires no explanation. here is another one

describing this photograph. here is the self complacency of four years ago. this is the way god looks when he has a successful season. this is an example of a notebook ahead and come this from when he was learning to be a pilot this means from the new orleans still the two the head of thailand to 62, 63. these are his notes of the passage in kenya and in the future. here is another river no book. isolated this phrase he is just regarding the death of the water to and 1/4?

here is that her i was mentioning. why would we mentioned about that? it is a well tested example. it is a connection problem. i need all the help by can get. but in new hampshire when mark twain is almost 70? 1905 she describes zinn great detail and includes the swatch of his tell it -- her. here is another thing that was found in the bible i don't know if you can see that her down here. is the same clipping that has been folded it is not a

poem written but taken from a magazine but it says for margaret. and on the supposition this is the way to memorialize her nine year-old daughter who died so that was fairly common in those days but that is just a guess until you can do something with the evidence that you have. of you look at the mitochondria dna if they have the same then they have the same mother so then we know more about how mark twain sister was born. just two pages mark twain imagines himself in germany and missing american food so he starts off this is only two page above four pager

list and goes to publish this but the wonderful thing about a manuscript like this is you can come back to it and it changing the whole content in a way that shows this is of great interest to him. we have lots of letters. what i call the most important that mark twain ever wrote for britain from san francisco he is down and out, without a job and he is out of money and probably drinking too much. he writes to his older brother and sister-in-law says he only has two powerful ambitions one is to become a pilot the other is the minister of the gospel.

i accomplished the the one and failed in the other because i could not supply myself with the necessary stock in trade. i had given it up forever. i never had a call in that direction i did have a call to literature nothing to be proud of but it is my strong suit then goes to resolve to make something out of that talent even though he says it is a low level of literature. mark twain knows full well this is an important lesson. you have better show this where we strike a bargain i don't want unpublished letters published after but fortunately they did not burn it is remarkable for

someone who has not yet published a book. he did not lack confidence. he wants the prove to read and said yesterday, they roche that it was improving by punctuation and about giving time to pray. [laughter] in order to give a sample of roughly 11,000 letters i would take a small category answering or not answering and this is in reply to support an orphanage to wish the best success but words are empty. showing the earnest spirit my more than 1,000 citizens who would contribute to more of their children who are

sent abroad. [laughter] >> he goes on and to give the double signature. it is not always that way but he knows what they will do with it. and they will get the $200 contribution. mark twain did not always answer such letters and when he didn't he often wrote what he would have said in threes on the envelope. this is how they matched up with the tender heart. the 80 it seemed to be uncommon and once god knows what declines did for the autograph letter. two things. excuse then did not persuade him. but from someone who wants to destroy the death penalty to the eye of his own future

[laughter] from the un known it this is the worst piece of cheek of all. from the boston ass and two days later from the same boston ass. [laughter] and some unknown person who probably has brains and modesty of equal proportion. i could go on almost infinitely with examples like this all through the papers. but this is a letter part of another aspect that eventually he figures out a way to insert and grant the request but have fun in the process. this is in answer to an employee of said dayton ohio asylum for the insane. he probably wrote his letter using asylum stationery

certain there will write you the autograph letter for your collection and what is more pleased not tell the officers that i said such a thing. i believe your wickedly and and just of the confined that is if they are rigorous with you. if their letters are quite rational and i am satisfied if you are put under negative zero judicious treatment you will get over it. of course, my signature and the whole theory is when he gets this letter and read it he may change his mind to his friends. >> listen carefully. a long time to answer your letter but remember is that equally long time since i have received it.

[laughter] so that makes us even and nobody to blame on either side. [laughter] firebreak you as i second audience berkeley usually takes about 10 seconds. [laughter] to the writer of valentine who is so impatient for a reply he enclosed a piece of paper and a stamp with his original letter and mark twain answered paper and stamp received. [laughter] please send a low. before i go on and get to the autobiography mark twain loved cancellations. and unlike you and me would probably never quail at sending a letter through the mail.

we might be embarrassed but he was not. he also knew that cancellation could re-read. here is our attempt to read it. it took us six months to pass it around the office and you can see we still have trouble with the second line. you cannot do that confidently because the way that you read such a thing is to pick out the descenders and ascenders and those are confidence but they help you to narrow down what is likely to be for this whole case there is one defender it took a long while. they did finally get it but it stops and starts over with a suspicion that comes

over. that i know you 25 or $50. so how do we know? this is a piece from a letter that he writes to his fiancee who tries to persuade him to become a christian and is very wary of the letters that she has received and one of them is torn out of the whole section of the page. and she has asked him what was that confession? he says a confession i destroy is what i refuse to hear about for $600 because at this point* i can again you would say i was a lovesick india. between ourselves, i am. i could not be so reckless

to write the above if you have any curiosity in your composition. if you're curious enough to pry for what i said i would not dare to write this but now you can tell it was written precisely to uncover it and he knows she will do that and down here in brackets is another speaker when she discovers what he has just said. how to we know that worked? we know because mark twain in venice away to prevent those cancellations from being read and crosses and adds ascenders and ascenders and misleads so badly that unless you know, that is going on you cannot read the cancellation.

we were pretty sure she couldn't and just to show you on the project for 40 years this is something not everybody in the stands you're lucky to understand it working on the autobiography to which i am going to get right now with 20 minutes to go. as i see it there are twos kinds of stories where mark twain tried and tried and succeeded to do the autobiography and another where the editors themselves wrestle with the documents that he left behind and figured out what no one had known before that he

finished his autobiography and knew exactly what he wanted and did not want in it. 5,000 pages in the papers but unless you know, how to understand those pages unify the autobiography you'll find others have found a and mistake and why did mark twain want that suppressed of not publishing in entirety for 100 years? this is not a very complicated question. he wants the freedom to compose as he wants to without the fear of hurting anybody's feelings and not just who was alive when he was right team by their descendants and their descendants. this show is on vacation 500 years is necessary but that

just shows that is a long time not that he literally expects that much time to go by but talks about the internal real and when he expects to happen those things i'm about to say will become commonplace where as if they could inflict pain on my friends by thousands of strangers i have no desire to hurt other to get me ostracized and cut off from all human fellowship and that is the main thing. i am human nothing can persuade me to do any bad deeds lowered good one to bring that punishment upon me. that is not widely recognized the and there is another motive that is selling the book and about to go to the north american

review where mark twain published a very small selection of a autobiography and edited down so there's nothing offensive in it. what this shows he says let's proceed with every installment it is not issued in book form during my lifetime. that is literally what happened. so you how 25 separate reminders that this is not here. you cannot get it until after he dies. that is a marketing plan. [laughter] why wasn't it published before? it was partly published before. this is the official biographer of 1924 and also

publishing his selection of the biography in 1940. charles was not a literary editor but i have given you three pictures of him to give you the fact abetting mark twain. [laughter] but to be fair i have included this. [laughter] that shows effective stage effects of editing since 1967 that shows the real guilty parties. i am just the supervisor i don't do editing or darth vader in the corner office i am not will come most of the time. i do want to talk about why those additions are not satisfactory.

they felt absolutely free to write and the individual documents. you can see these pencil markings are by pain. in fact, he hands them to the printer and numbers them and when the printer is done with them what do they do? he puts them on a spindle and that is what this little hole is all about. this does lead to the fact that there are things that should have been in the autobiography that are gone or lost one of the things the editors manage to do was solve that problem as well. you can see pain has decided he doesn't like what is being said. this is a discussion of a man named newton win zero

olivia was paralyzed for a number of years and doctors did no good at all and they persuaded him to hire this guy newton who said he made some passes about her head with his hand and said now you will set up my child. it is to pay again and did not like that. so new to know does the windows and delivered a short prayer and then talks about the passive -- passing the hands over the head it crosses out. and they cannot tell this was not mark twain. here are a couple more pages but he is on record as saying that he disapproves

and took out hundreds and hundreds of comments when he published it. really publishes a very small selection and was perfectly free to write on the manuscript to his typist. the of course, mark twain is over here so one of the basic faults is to figure out which are the author? how do we know those comments are a who's? if you take a taxi has done this to and compared to the way he publishes you can see the, has disappeared. here we have mark twain writing it is one of the great achievements they figure on how to distinguish from all of the markings on

this. here is one sample with five handwriting samples. there all by pain. they also have the typesetter this is the printers copy and actually somebody we don't know and here is mark twain. what does this mean? he even? the things the stenographer gets from like he has sit-in in effect nonexistent and clearly that is what he said to say that is not needed

either so the challenge here throughout the autobiography types groups is to figure out exactly what mark twain wanted and to leave out the desires of the other. another challenge that is hard to explain is that many daily dictations there is one comment two, three, four sometimes less typed copies of the same edition. not carbons. these are retyping is. this is the front page may 24 it looks roughly the same as you can see this is page 726 this is 883 this is

more than 1115. what are the differences in pagination and wire they so prominent? does it imply he moves the passage around when he won seven different places? i don't think so. we could say at least it wasn't this threat of this is the normal way. that is not what has happened here? >> it was figured out by the physical characteristics there is one central typescript made from the original stenographers now stand at some point* they had a retired and again.

that is progress because it shows you what has the most authority but the problem is this. 408. why? it is clear that these high numbers of why there's something missing. where is it? it was in the final. we just didn't know it. mrs. an early attempt to diagram the situation. i cannot understand it myself. but this is the relationship we figured out permanent and occupies all the folders and here is the original then

ts3 is a extract from the north american review that is page number four. here is the real key how do we figure this out? riding out a series of pages he clearly intended to begin the autobiography he numbers this one and then the early attempt is number two. this is something he has done in the past that is the failure and an example of the difficult method of autobiography so you can see what i went through to get to the final solution. here is page number three. this would be great if you knew what they were. but we didn't they don't exist.

only if it survives from what they were named from and those types grips so you can see on the next page it is not floor above 45 unless you do not understand they come in but this was to receive some of the examples of dictation from 1904 it goes like that. this is the text he is referring to he wants to begin it with. and wonderful text despite the fact it is not so good. his description june 1906 is the alliance description. his reading on the porch and mr. cleamons read the very first beginning written many years ago 1879.

44 typewritten pages telling of his boyhood days on the farm was deeply moved and in other words, we know this is a wonderful passage. of the end followed by the latest attempt and then he says here. more will follow. the first time in history it is hit upon for the autobiography. but to make a long story short or shorter than it should be that is what explains these bonds appear. they were put in place before ts4 and ts2 were made. i have got roughly 87 minutes. it is a little incoherent to

do it this way but that is grover cleveland. there are wonderful passages about grover cleveland that i owe it to mark twain to read simply because that gives a better idea that i can on my own. mark twain did not know cleveland when they were residents in buffalo and this is the account of how they just met. during the time we were in buffalo, mr. cleveland was a share of but i never happen to make his acquaintance are even see him. in fact, i suppose i was not even aware of his existence. 14 years later the greatest man in the state i was not living in the state at the time. [laughter]

i was on the public highway and we were robbing the public with readings from our works and over the course of time we went to albany. i said we ought to pay our respects to the governor. we went to the majestic capitol building and were shown into the governor's private office and i saw him for the first time. we stood chatting. i was born lazy and a comforted myself turning the table into a seat. the governor said mr. cleamons i was a fellow citizen and of yours in buffalo and during those months he burst into eight mighty fame jumping out of obscurity. >> but i was nobody and you would not notice you're have

anything to do with me. but now i am somebody you have changed your style and come here to shake hands. how would you explain that? >> this is the president. i said it is very simple and buffalo you're nothing but a share of. i could not afford to associate with the share of. you are a governor now in on your way to the presidency. there is a great difference and makes you less while. [laughter] . .

he actually says there was a cluster of 16 bell buttons on the corner of the table. my proportions of that were just right to enable me to cover the whole of that net, and that is how i came to hatch out those 16 clerks. [laughter] so you are going to get to see what he actually wrote for the first time. one more passage and i will try to squeeze this in. if it rings i will stop. that is frances cleveland. she got married in the white house to president cleveland in 1884. she was the first person to be married in the white house. she is as you can see beautiful and young and she was a great

asset to the cleveland administration because she was very willing to go out and be a jackie kennedy to the world. one more thing. does anyone know what arctic star? if you wear your arctic's what you do? those were galoshes, probably boots. in washington, not too much pavement in washington especially during the wintertime in a case you need to know that. i was always heedless. is born he lives and therefore it was unconsciously committing breaches of the minor proprieties which brought upon the humiliations without to have humiliated me but didn't because i didn't know anything had happened. so the humiliations would not turn demented not deserve them. she always said i was the most difficult child she had. she was very sensitive about me. distressed me to see me do heedless things which it did bring me under criticism so she

was always watchful and alert to protect me from the transgressions which i have been speaking of. when i was leaving hartford for washington or a reception at the white house on she said i had written a small morning and put it in a pocket of your dress best. when you are dressing to go to the office reception of white house you will naturally put your fingers in your vest pocket according to your custom and you will find that little note there read it carefully and do as it tells you. i cannot be with you so i delegate my sentry duties to this little note. if i should give you a warning by word of mouth now it would passion your head and be forgotten in a few minutes. it was president clinton's first term. i'd never seen his wife, the young, the beautiful, the goodhearted, the sympathetic, the fascinating. sure enough just as i i was fetishizing to go to the white house i found that little note which i had long ago forgotten. it was a great little note, serious little note like it's

brighter but it made me laugh. olivia's gentle gravity has produced that effect upon me. are the expert humorous joke would have failed for it did not laugh easily. when we reach the white house and i was shaking hands with the president he started to say something that i interrupted him and said if your excellency will excuse me i will come back in a moment. but now i have a very important matter to attend to and it must be attended to at once. i turned to mrs. cleveland, the young, the beautiful, the fascinating and gave her my card on the back of which i had written, he didn't, he didn't. and i asked her to sign her name below those words. she said, he didn't? he didn't what? oh i said nevermind they cannot stop to discuss that now. mrs. arjun. won't you please sign your name? i handed her a fountain pen. why she said i cannot commit myself in that way.

who is it that didn't and what is it that he didn't? oh i said time is flying, flying, flying. want to take me out of my distress and sign your name to it? it's all right. i give you my word it's all right. she looked unhesitatingly and mechanically she took the pen and said, i will sign it. i will take the risk that you must tell me all about it right after you get out of the house in case there should be anything criminal about this. [laughter] and then she signed and i handed her mrs. clemons note which was very brief, very simple and to the point. it said, don't wear your arctic senate white house. [laughter] it made her shout and at my request she summoned a messenger and resent that card at once to the mail on its way to mrs. clemons. thank you very much. [applause]

>> if you will gather those blue cards for your questions. >> the inquisition. >> and i don't know when this microphone is going to go on. it is not working. it is working. it is working for you. oh, and i made the mistake of taking off my lava layers. >> where is it? >> it is over in my bag.

hold on one second. >> turn it on, yeah. do you want me to hold it? >> i have to hold two microphones. >> the black thing. >> okay. as we are gathering up the questions, i have a question. i hadn't realized that i was interested in establishing a new narrative around autobiography, and i mean i would like to ask

ask -- i know the editors made millions of decisions and so how did they find themselves guiding that pathway of establishing a new narrative? >> well, once you figure out what the relationship between those various types are, you have a standard way of treating them. the one that is derived from the notes notes has the most authority. anything that the others have that are different are either mistakes by the typist or their changes by mark twain. so you would adopt those and put them into the beginning text and you eventually have exactly what he wanted at least in sabar sows documents can tell you. now i need their there aspects of this manuscript that are so large and so in a way unfinished that it was not ready for the press, not ready for the printer and in a way he didn't prepare for the printer and he will say things like, you know, here is the celebration from harper's of

my 75th birthday. that is the pages of harper's, about 28 pages. there is no way physically and the most we can do is insert a link to it on the electronic side. i should've said that all of this is available on the mark twain project.org free of charge. you don't have to buy it in that has some advantages over the print. but as far as actually you know, shaping what he did, we are not trying to shape it. we are trying to follow what the evidence shows and what those early manuscript pages show us for the first time with all of the things, all of those preliminary pensions. we have put in the front of the book labored -- labeled as seminary. one of keillor's problems is that he is treating them as if they were all part of the autobiography and they have course redman terry and mark twain did not want them included even though paine, who should

have known better did include them. and that is really the first time that we nail that he had excluded all that. he knew how to us to begin. he knew what was to follow and then you are off and running. all you have to do is follow the chronology of the dictation. does that answer your question? >> all of these are great questions. one of the questions that the audience asked is how did the prior author's, paine and the others, get ahold of his autobiography prior to being donated to uc berkeley and how did they get past his wish of 100 years after his death? >> let me take the last thing first. if you read the newspapers you would think that mark twain had written this embargo, 100-year-old embargo into his will. he did not. it is simply not that firm a prohibition. is actually more there to protect him as he is composing it so he doesn't imagine that

anyone a life would hear what he is going to say. he knows he is going to be dead and is not going to be olds intro would anybody publishes. now to go to the first part, paine and deleo where the first literary editors of the mark twain to stay. mark twain appointed paine. he assigned them the right to do the autobiography and paine rules over the papers along with clara, the only surviving daughter, and till he dies in 1937. he is such -- he is such an exclusion is that bernard devoto gets really ticked off because he is trying to write a book about march when he can't get access to the papers. but paine guys and devoto, squeaky wheel, is appointed as his successor so they have accessed, direct access to the mark twain papers that are still outside california we are talking about 1937 to 1940, 41,

42, 43. now how did they get to do what they wanted to do? who was to stop them? in fact it is not really that unusual for editors of commercial books to do what they think will sell. that is what devoto was doing when he went through and crossed out all of the comments. he thinks that will interfere with the sales of harper's edition of it. i don't know if i answered that will question. if i didn't please speak up again. >> what percentage of the autobiography, not including the uc berkeley's editor edition, is the original distinction -- dictation which he started in 1906? >> what percentage of its fact it is almost the entire percentage. almost 100% of the actual finished autobiography. there are manuscript pieces in it that he an insert. for instance the story about the dual that i referred to is written out in longhand and he just inserts it is part of the

dictation. i don't know if that answers the question but basically the autobiography, the one that he wanted to publishes almost entirely dictation. >> okay, is there any proof that he said the coldest winter i ever spent was the summer in san francisco? [laughter] >> so far as i know there is no proof. [laughter] what we do know is that he quotes an 18th century actor saying that about paris. now, one can see why that might have been picked up and changed and turned into san francisco. every year in cities like vancouver and seattle write me and say did he say about bank over and did he say about seattle? i am offering to rent it to them for $75 a day. [laughter] but the fact is i can't troop a negative but we have looked for this and look for it and look for it. we have never found any evidence that he said it.

mark twain ever live in san francisco? >> oh yes. he had to leave virginia city to go to that dual mac. dueling was outlawed. he would have been imprisoned if he would have been cut. he and gillis come to san francisco and he takes a job on the san francisco morning call as a reporter, and local reporter. this was in 1864, may of 1864. he hates local reporting so he resigned the same time that george barnes is willing to fire him. and heathen stays in san francisco really without serious employment. he is writing for california but that is not much money. he is living off the income or the value of whining stocks that he has managed to get ahold of but toward the end of 65 he runs out of those stocks. though stocks had disappeared in one way or another and yes to get a job so he writes his own boss on the virginia territory

and a price and says let me write a dated letter from san francisco to the enterprise and joe said sure, do it and so mark twain writes a 2000 word letter, six days a week for about five months and some of the best letters he ever wrote, and we have maybe about 20% of them. we look for them every day. we usually go up into the attic and see if you have any old letters. most of the things that survive are not enterprise clippings or enterprise issues but our contemporary newspapers that reprinted because he was a very good copy and he was free. that is how those texts came about. >> the person as the san francisco question also wants to know if you know the neighborhood that he lived in and if he ever met robert lui stevenson? >> do i know the neighborhood? you can sort of peace out the neighborhood. it is so changed that in fact to me it doesn't really look like the neighborhood but you know he

mentioned being on montgomery street so he can figure out roughly where he was. it is just not very likely. did he ever meets robert lui stevenson? yes he did indeed. he was very fond of stephenson. he didn't know him for very long. as a set in the talk, basically he and mark twain come up with this idea of the submerged audience at our twain talks about their discussing this in washington square in new york. stephenson is out there taking in the sun because he is tubercular and has to kind of stay warm. mark twain did meet him, liked him, didn't have a long correspondence with them unfortunately. >> robert can you talk a little bit more about submerged audience? it is an interesting concept. >> well you can read it for yourself. don't just rely on my summary, but the section on stephenson is in the very beginning of the final form but basically what stephenson who proposes it says he talks about this person,

davis, who is published all kinds of sort of practical books, how to do this, p.m. a plain, very kind of practical books which he has discovered an enormous quantities. in enormous quantities. he discovered this from booksellers. he had never heard of this guy. never read anything by him. the editors figured out that this was not davis that a guy named she wrote all kinds of practical books that sold in the millions. and the idea is that this is someone who was unknown is unknown to the sword of the normal world if you will, the popular pearl that you and i live in, but he is known to those readers. they are submerged. they are below the surface and mark twain regarded them as his real audience. all i was trying to point out is he was right. they are buying his books. does that help? >> very definitely. what was the extent of mark twain's formal education? >> and mark twain left school at

the age of 12 when his father died. he was trained really in the country, and school that is all great and one-room. you can guess from the age of 12 up what great he was and that it was not that formal. he is one of the true great autodidact of the world. i mean he has no formal training he doesn't even have a whaling ship let alone harvard and yale. but if you study him and you find out that he has read everything. he has read and read and read. principally nonfiction but really just very widely. just looking at his early letters you find references to all kinds of literary names, shakespeare and that kind of stuff. that disappears after a wild but basically the beginning of his lifelong appetite for new

literary text. >> we have got two more quick questions. why was uc berkeley chosen to receive the papers? >> why was it chosen? i didn't explain this very well. i'm glad that they asked that. mark twain wrote his will in such a way that his descendents and they turned out to be only one daughter, could not make over the papers or sell the papers or even give the papers to anybody except through their own will. dead so, this is designed to protect them from men. it didn't work. she married the second husband named samassoud who basically ripped her off a $5 million but it kept the papers together. claris samassoud would have loved to have sold them off piece by piece but he couldn't. the legal situation was not right for that. so, when they were out here, i

mean i rushed over that. they go from paine to take them to harvard. he resigned 15 or 16 times ends than and then he does resign in takes him out them out to the huntington. dickson night train is a tall courtly texan. he knew how to deal with clara. he was a genius at that. so when he decides he wants to leave huntington to go to we, he asked her, can i take the papers with me? she said, sure. before the papers arrive he writes and says i really think you should change your will so that instead of going to yale, which is where they were intended to go, they go to berkeley. you can see what he was worried about. he was worried that claire would die and those papers would be scooted out from underneath him and his biography which is based solely on those papers would come to a hault. she writes them back and says i will send you a copy next week.

that is why. don't get me wrong, the papers aren't the reason -- until she dies 1962 and there a number of efforts on the part of the samassoud to get them back piecemeal. fortunately the people in charge of them are wise enough to resist all those. samassoud was something of a snake, a gambler. we know for instance that he offered letters that were in the family called love letters come about 750 letters between olivia and clemons over many years. he came and offered them to -- for $50,000 he said no, that was too much. this was 1952. however he comes back in about three weeks and says we can have them for $10,000, but i need the money by sunday. so they go over and open up the bank of america and give him his $10,000. we know that he did that kind of thing with other things that were held by clara, sold them.

>> interesting. peter fraser reminds me that there is a lunch club a mark twain's luncheon club that has been meeting for quite sometime, twice a year and they know they are one of the individuals that have funded the mark twain project as a whole endeavor. can you talk a bit more about the funding? >> yes. the funding is always a problem as you might imagine. this is not funded directly by the university. it has been funded really since its inception by grants from the national endowment for the communities. they have been absolutely loyal to us. i think we must be the longest running project they have ever had to pay for. beginning in 1980 they said well we are going to shift entirely to gift and matching grants. you have to raise 1 dollar in order for us to give you a dollar. so of all the grants since 1980

have been 50/50 that way and sort of my job to go out and try to find people who are willing to give that kind of money on the basis of what we do and what they hope we will do. we have been very successful recently but it is not a challenge that winds up and goes away. it is always going to be there. >> the world is better for all of this and robert thank you for joining us. everybody, thank you for coming. [applause] >> michael hirsche is a correspondent and to find out more visit "newsweek".com and search his name.

>> around the '90s and the first decade of this century, this other paradigm emerged for how to create a champion which is basically to turn it loose onto the internet and have it simply observe what people say

to it. so you can now must imagine this martian landed on the up and someone comes up with and says hi, and the martian poles up of this giant rolodex and says humans often begun conversations by saying hi, interesting. [laughter] and in the martian walks down the street and comes up to someone and says, hi, and then that person says sheikh what is up? humans often say hey what is up when you say hi. and, in this very painstaking process but over the course of in many cases decades of just hanging out on line waiting for people to cross its path and talk to it, it it builds this massive database of real stuff that people say, and you find when you interact with this kind of software, this very uncanny ability to respond to all sorts of things. so for example i attempted to see if it would reply to me if i spoke in french and i found that

my french was not only understood but actually corrected. [laughter] sort of condescendingly it told me the grammatically correct version of the sentence that i had -- and, you often find if you try to give it song lyrics that will sing back to you, so i had a conversation where i started typing in lyrics from bohemian rhapsody. so, i said scaramouche and clever bot replied will you do the fandango? [laughter] and, there is something truly area about a program that can do this. but part of what you learned as you interact with these programs, it's not so much that you are not talking to a human as that you are not talking to a human, and that turns out to be

a really critical distinction. if you ask it questions to which there is a correct answer, it will generally have that answer. if you say what country countries paris and it will say france. if you say how many legs and have it will say six but if you start dress with questions about itself you get this very strange sense that you are talking to several thousand people that are being quickly cycled in and out. and this was what i discovered when i started to ask clever bot about its love life. so i said do you have a boyfriend? clever bot, not at the moment but i hope to find one soon. so i venture, i would like to be her boyfriend. [laughter] clever bot, that would be difficult since i'm happily married. [laughter] curious, i asked again for clarification. me, do you have a boyfriend? no, i'm still looking for love.

do you have a husband? i don't have a husband because it would be illegal for me to have one since i am mail. [laughter] mail? okay, what gender are you? female. [laughter] once again just for good measure, do you have a boyfriend? not at the moment but i live in hope. can i be your boyfriend? no, i am straight. [laughter] >> can watch this and other programs on line at booktv.org up next on booktv vincent buddy cianci jr. recounts his 20 year tenure as the mayor of providence rhode island. he was removed from office in 2002 and spent five years in a federal prison on racketeering and conspiracy charges. he presents his thoughts on politics from campaigning to holding office at books on the square in providence, rhode island. this is about an hour and a half >> good evening everyone.

thanks for coming to books on the square. our honored guest tonight was mayor of providence from 1975 to 1984, and again from 1991 to 2002, when providence became the renaissance city. he is currently host of the buddy cianci show one wpro and now the author of this new book, "politics and pasta" how i prosecuted mobsters, rebuilt a dying city, dined with sonata, spent five years in a federally funded gated community and lived to tell the tale. ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present mayor vincent buddy cianci jr.. [applause]