Talk:Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I

CZ doesn't permit links to WP for any reason, particularly not for "references"! Thanks! Hayford Peirce 23:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Topic of this article

An article with this title ("Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I") has to treat the book as a work of literature -- its history, the literary relevance of its text, and its significance as a historical document. On the other hand, a biography of the author belongs into the article Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens on the author and must not be based on the autobiography alone. --Peter Schmitt 11:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Peter about this -- this article has nothing at all to do with the subject, the book itself. I think the thrust of the article has to be how the book was created, and when, and why it was not published for 100 years, how it was finally published this year, what the reviewers thought of it, what new material it has introduced about Twain, etc. etc. Didn't a prominent American novelist write a long, long review of it in the NYT -- that, for instance, might be mentioned. Much of the material that exists in the present article, could, I suppose, be in a *longer* article that incorporated the elements that Peter and I mention, but as *illustrations* of various of those elements. As it is, this is just a brief history of the life of Twain. Hayford Peirce 17:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the biographical sketch and rewritten the most basic information. --Peter Schmitt 09:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)