The Story of My Life: Top Biography
About this ebook
This book is in three parts. The first two, Miss Keller's story and the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her life as far as she can give it. Much of her education she cannot explain herself, and since a knowledge of that is necessary to an understanding of what she has written, it was thought best to supplement her autobiography with the reports and letters of her teacher, Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The addition of a further account of Miss Keller's personality and achievements may be unnecessary; yet it will help to make clear some of the traits of her character and the nature of the work which she and her teacher have done.
For the third part of the book the Editor is responsible, though all that is valid in it he owes to authentic records and to the advice of Miss Sullivan.
The Editor desires to express his gratitude and the gratitude of Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan to The Ladies' Home Journal and to its editors, Mr. Edward Bok and Mr. William V. Alexander, who have been unfailingly kind and have given for use in this book all the photographs which were taken expressly for the Journal; and the Editor thanks Miss Keller's many friends who have lent him her letters to them and given him valuable information; especially Mrs. Laurence Hutton, who supplied him with her large collection of notes and anecdotes; Mr. John Hitz, Superintendent of the Volta Bureau for the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge relating to the Deaf; and Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, to whom Miss Sullivan wrote those illuminating letters, the extracts from which give a better idea of her methods with her pupil than anything heretofore published.
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About the author
Helen Keller, born in 1880, was the first deaf-blind graduate of Radcliffe College. Later, she became a high-profile socialist, and throughout her life she was a strong advocate for the blind and deaf communities, visiting over thirty-five countries and publishing fourteen books about her experiences, which have been translated into more than fifty languages. She died in 1968.
James Berger is associate professor of English at Hofstra University. The author of After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse, Berger has been awarded a Charles Phelps Taft Postdoctoral Fellowship by the University of Cincinnati and a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is now working on his next book, Those Who Can’t Speak. He lives in Connecticut.
