Eve’s Diary
By Mark Twain
“Eve’s Diary” is a comic short story by Mark Twain. It was first published in the 1905 Christmas issue of the magazine Harper’s Bazaar, in book format as one contribution to a volume entitled “Their Husband’s Wives” and then in June 1906 as a standalone book by Harper and Brothers publishing house. It is written in the style of a diary kept by the first woman in the biblical creation story, Eve, and is claimed to be “translated from the original MS.” The “plot” of this story is the first-person account of Eve from her creation up to her burial by her mate Adam, including meeting and getting to know him and exploring the world around her, Eden. The story then jumps 40 years into the future after the Fall and expulsion from Eden. It is one of a series of books Twain wrote concerning the story of Adam and Eve, including Extracts from Adam’s Diary, ‘That Day In Eden,’ ‘Eve Speaks,’ ‘Adam’s Soliloquy,’ and the ‘Autobiography of Eve.’
“Eve’s Diary” has a lighter tone than the others in the series, as Eve strongly appreciates beauty and love. The book may have been written as a posthumous love letter to Mark Twain’s wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, or Livy, who died in June 1904, just before the story was written. Mark Twain says, “‘Eve’s Diary’ is finished — I’ve been waiting for her to speak, but she doesn’t say anything more.” The story ends with Adam lamenting at Eve’s grave, “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.” The book version of the story was published with 55 illustrations by Lester Ralph on each left-hand page. The illustrations depicted Eve and Adam in their natural settings. The depiction of an unclothed woman was considered pornographic when the book was first released in the United States and created a controversy around the book. A library in Charlton, Massachusetts, banned the book for the depictions of Eve in “summer costume.”
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Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, essayist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.
Biography
He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced”, and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature”. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the “Great American Novel”. Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later set the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career and worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens’ newspaper. Then, he became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, providing him with the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.
He first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought him international attention. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, he became a much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Although Twain initially spoke out in favour of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands, he later reversed his position, becoming vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until he died in 1910, coming out strongly against the Philippine-American War and colonialism. Twain earned a great deal of money from his writing and lectures but invested in ventures that lost most of it.
One is the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks but, in time, overcame his financial troubles with the help of Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers. Twain eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his declaration of bankruptcy meant he was not required to do so. He was born shortly after the appearance of Halley’s Comet and predicted that his death would accompany it as well, dying a day after the comet was at its closest to Earth.
Mark Twain
