The Diaries of Adam and Eve (1904,1906)

These witty and whimsical diaries reflect both Twain's belief in women's equality and his irreverent views of conventional religion. Extracts from Adam's Diary was published first, in 1904 with Fred Strothmann's humorous cartoons of supposedly ancient stone carvings on every left-hand page. Here Twain has a field day with the story of Adam and Eve, playfully placing the Garden of Eden at Niagara Falls, "the honeymoon capital of the world." A companion piece, Eve's Diary was published in 1906, accompanied by the stunning line drawings of Lester Ralph; it was banned in Worcester, Massachusetts, because of its supposedly pornographic illustrations of a prelapsarian Eve. Eve's Diary is both a love story and Clemens' loving eulogy to his deceased wife: "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden." The two diaries never appeared in one volume during Twain's lifetime, despite Twain's desire that they be republished together someday, as they are here, in their entirety, for the first time. Now readers can delight in comparing the decidedly different takes Adam and Eve have on the same memorable events.