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Zusatztext “The greatest woman of our age.” — Winston Churchill “Helen Keller is fellow to Caesar! Alexander! Napoleon! Homer! Shakespeare! and the rest of the immortals. . . . She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is today.” — Mark Twain Informationen zum Autor 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. Klappentext THE 100th YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION The Story of My Life , a remarkable account of overcoming the debilitating challenges of being both deaf and blind, has become an international classic, making Helen Keller one of the most well-known, inspirational figures in history. Originally published in 1903, Keller's fascinating memoir narrates the events of her life up to her third year at Radcliffe College. Helen Keller's story of struggle and achievement is one of unquenchable hope. From tales of her difficult early days, to details of her relationship with her beloved teacher Anne Sullivan, to her impressions of academic life, Keller's honest, straightforward writing lends insight into an amazing mind. Like the original, this centenary edition of T he Story of My Life includes letters Keller wrote to friends throughout her childhood and adolescence that chronicle her intellectual and sensory progression, as well as assistant John Macy's commentary on her interpretations of her surroundings. In addition to reprinting Keller's long-lost original work, this edition contains excerpts from her little-known, deeply personal memoir The World We Live In , which give readers a detailed look into an otherwise unimaginable existence, as well as an excerpt from Out of the Dark, a political commentary Keller wrote during her years as a socialist. Deftly edited and prefaced by scholar James Berger, this comprehensive anniversary edition celebrates a century of readers' enthrallment with one of the most powerful figures in history. Leseprobe Chapter I It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important. I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama. The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of...
