By Gina Kim gkim@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Death may be the impartial friend – who treats the soiled and pure, rich and poor, loved and unloved equally – but Mark Twain transcends the grave with his autobiography, which has become the sought-after holiday gift of the year.
Published the stipulated 100 years after his no-longer-an-exaggeration of a death, the "Autobiography of Mark Twain" debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times best-sellers list last month and has remained in the top 10 since, landing at No. 5 this week.
Surprised retailers haven't been able to keep the dictionary-size tome on their shelves or in warehouses, relegating many would-be purchasers to waiting lists – or inflated prices reaching $750 on Amazon.com.
• Virginia City, Nev. – Writes for the Territorial Enterprise.
• San Francisco – Writes for various publications including the Morning Call.
• Angels Camp, Calaveras County – Gets the inspiration for "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."
• Sacramento – Works for the now-defunct Union newspaper as a correspondent in Hawaii.
"We've got 10 orders waiting to be filled," said Stan Forbes, co-owner of the Avid Reader in Sacramento, which expects its supply to be replenished at midmonth. "It's a phenomenon ... like the interest in opening a time capsule."
Douglas Mitten grew up along the Mississippi River, making "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" poignant when he read it in grade school and every time since.
"I love the rascal in the characters – nobody was completely bad or completely good," said Mitten, 62, of Sacramento. "And it's just a fun adventure."
Mitten is one of those who continues to wait for his copy of the $35, 744-page hardcover to arrive so he can "lock myself in my den and start reading."
The autobiography has fast become the most successful book to be published by the University of California Press, with a first run of 50,000 books that sailed out the door, said Robert Hirst, general editor of the Mark Twain Project in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
The book is now in its seventh run for a total of 350,000 copies, with more possible.
"I never realized it would be on the best-seller list until it was on the best-seller list," Hirst said.
But Hirst now recognizes the foresight of Twain, who hit the lecture circuit like a modern-day book junket and was one of the first fiction authors to successfully use door-to-door salesmen.
"Can you spell marketing plan? The man knew what this would do," Hirst said. "He knew 100 years was a magic number that would have some kind of publicity value."
Twain – Samuel Langhorne Clemens – spent more than 30 years paddle-wheeling around the idea of an autobiography before deciding to dictate his memories as he thought of them to a stenographer.
"You feel like you're sitting in the room with him," said Linda Morris, professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Davis. "You get a very, very strong sense of his voice and a strong sense of his thought association."
Versions of the information have been released over the years by editors who snipped and jiggered, carved and fuddled. This is the first time it has been left in the order Twain dictated and with the honesty requiring the century-long embargo.
"What he decided was an autobiography as a chronology is a nonstop lie," said Gregg Camfield, a Twain scholar and literature professor at the University of California, Merced. "A real life is all the digressions; it's all the side trips. What he wanted to do was show a mind at work."
After a 200-page discussion of how editors at the Mark Twain Project rediscovered Twain's intent, the true autobiography meanders through his thoughts on politics and religion, success and failure, friends and enemies.
"One thing to learn is we're not as different from 100 years ago as we think," Camfield said. "He was as confused as all of us, and I think there's a sense of connection to him in that he grappled with what we continue to grapple with."
Thousands of the books were presold at the Barnes & Noble website, and the hundreds in stock this week continued to sell briskly, said director of book merchandizing Bryan Oettel.
"They're going out almost as quickly as they're coming in," he said.
Although downloadable for about $10 onto various e-readers, the book in its physical form seems to be one of the year's go-to gifts, Oettel said.
Mike Schrenk, 50, of Las Vegas was hoping to buy a copy for his 24-year-old son. He hasn't been able to find one online and passed on an edition that cost 70 pounds in the United Kingdom.
"Somebody might get a Snuggie for Christmas or one of those LED booklamps" instead, Schrenk said.
