This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2014) |
Author | Mark Twain |
---|---|
Illustrator | Lester Ralph |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Humor |
Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
Publication date | 1906 |
Media type | |
Pages | 109 pp |
Preceded by | A Dog's Tale |
Followed by | King Leopold's Soliloquy |
"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 [1] 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 has a strong appreciation for 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 is quoted as saying, "'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."
When contacted Twain replied:
The action of the Charlton library was not of the slightest interest to me.
Two weeks later, after testifying before Congress, he elaborated as reported in the Washington Herald ,
The whole episode has rather amused me. I have no feeling of vindictiveness over the stand of the librarians there — I am only amused. You see they did not object to my book; they objected to Lester Ralph's pictures. I wrote the book; I did not make the pictures. I admire the pictures, and I heartily approve them, but I did not make them.
It seems curious to me — some of the incidents in this case. It appears that the pictures in Eve's Diary were first discovered by a lady librarian. When she made the dreadful find, being very careful, she jumped at no hasty conclusions — not she — she examined the horrid things in detail. It took her some time to examine them all, but she did her hateful duty! I don't blame her for this careful examination; the time she spent was, I am sure, enjoyable, for I found considerable fascination in them myself.
Then she took the book to another librarian, a male this time, and he, also, took a long time to examine the unclothed ladies. He must have found something of the same sort of fascination in them that I found...
In a handwritten inscription in the front of at least one copy of the book, he wrote:
Clothes make the man, but they do not improve the woman. [2]
And in a letter to a friend, Harriett E. Whitmore, he commented:
the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.
David Birney adapted the novel into a play called Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve. [3]
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Lilith, also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, theorized to be the first wife of Adam and a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Eden for not complying with and obeying Adam.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. The poem concerns the biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Charlton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,315 at the 2020 census.
James Allen Whitmore Jr. was an American actor. He received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Theatre World Award, and a Tony Award, plus two Academy Award nominations.
In Jewish mythology, forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden which God commands mankind not to eat. In the biblical story, Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and are exiled from Eden:
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. The doctrine of the Fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis, chapters 1–3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from eating the fruit of the tree of life and becoming immortal.
Children of Eden is a 1991 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by John Caird. The musical is based on the Book of Genesis, with Act I telling the story of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, while Act II deals with Noah and the flood.
"Simpsons Bible Stories" is the eighteenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on Easter Sunday, April 4, 1999. It is the first of The Simpsons' now annual trilogy episodes, and consists of four self-contained segments. In the episode, the Simpson family falls asleep during a sermon in church. Marge dreams that she and Homer are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Lisa dreams that she and her fellow Springfield Elementary School students are Hebrew slaves in Ancient Egypt and guides Moses to lead them to freedom, Homer dreams that he is King Solomon called to resolve a dispute between Lenny and Carl over the ownership of a pie, and Bart dreams he is King David, who has to fight Goliath's son, Goliath II.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain which recounts the life of Joan of Arc.
Phoebe Louise Adams Gloeckner is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and novelist.
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems.
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story of the Abrahamic religions, she was the first woman. Eve is known also as Adam's wife.
The Apple Tree is a series of three musical playlets with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and a book by Bock and Harnick with contributions from Jerome Coopersmith. Each act has its own storyline, but all three are tied together by a common theme and common references, such as references to the color brown. The first act is based on Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve; the second act is based on Frank R. Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger?"; the third act is based on Jules Feiffer's Passionella. The working title for the evening of three musicals was Come Back! Go Away! I Love You!
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.
The Adventures of Mark Twain, also known as Comet Quest in the United Kingdom, is a 1985 American independent stop-motion claymation fantasy film directed by Will Vinton and starring James Whitmore. It received a limited theatrical release in May 1985 and was released on DVD in January 2006 and again as a collector's edition in 2012 on DVD and Blu-ray.
"Extracts from Adam's Diary: Translated from the Original Ms." is a comic short story by the American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The story was first published in The Niagara Book (1893), and was collected in Twain's 1903 book My Debut as a Literary Person with Other Essays and Stories. "Extracts from Adam's Diary" was first published as a book in 1904 by Harper & Brothers, with numerous illustrations by Frederick Strothmann.
The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906) is a collection of thirty comic short stories by the American writer Mark Twain. The stories contained span the course of his career, from "Advice to Young Girls" in 1865 to the titular tale in 1904. Although Twain had ample time to refine his short stories between their original publication date and this collection, there is little evidence to suggest he took an active interest in doing so. "A Burlesque Biography" contains only a few minor technical revisions which make it different from the 1871 version found in Mark Twain's "(Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance". "Advice to Little Girls" shows slight revision from its earlier publication in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , well known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called the "Great American Novel," and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He also wrote poetry, short stories, essays, and non-fiction. His big break was "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1867).
Lester Ralph was an artist who illustrated for several publications.