In this autobiography, Mark Twain is speaking from the grave, literally. He would not allow the book to be published until after his death, so that he could speak freely, as in a love letter. In the manner in which Twain is so well-known, his autobiography is really not an autobiography at all, but a series of entertaining stories and opinions, dinner table talks, such as he had always delivered in his own home and elsewhere, and with about the same latitude and elaboration. Twain's narrative is not in any sense a mere fairy tale, many of the chapters, especially the earlier ones, are vividly true in their presentation. The things he told of Mrs. Clemens and Susy are marvelously and beautifully true in spirit and aspect, and the story as a whole is amazingly faithful in the character picture it presents of the man himself.