Never, in this case, is 100 years.
After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all
The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.
That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography.
OK, what gets me is not that Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, did not want his autobiography released until 100 years after his death. What gets me is that he died April 21, 1910, and the first edition won’t be out until November of 2010. What? Not enough lead-time to get the project done?
Quite exciting to learn that his autobiography and other works will be out soon… but your point about the lead time is hilarious. Have they not had the staff or something?
I imagine the redactions and paraphrasing (as to what he really meant) would have taken at least that long.