The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama. 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. 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. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. 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 task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. IT is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. Note the omission of the vowels before "r" in "learn," and the joining of the sign for "to" with the word that follows it.) (Underlined combinations of letters have one sign in braille. Edward Everett Hale 136įacsimile of the braille manuscript of the passage on page 24, with equivalents–slightly reduced. (Showing also the small house where Helen Keller was born) 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Helen Keller and Miss Sullivan Frontispiece FACING PAGE "Ivy Green," the Keller Homestead THE STORY OF MY LIFE PAGE Chapters I-XXIII TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Editor's Preface VII Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, kindly sent the original of another letter from Miss Keller to Whittier.Ĭambridge, Massachusetts, February 1, 1903. Holmes, whichĪppeared in "Over the Teacups," and one of Whittier's letters to Miss Keller.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company have courteously permitted the reprinting of Miss Keller's letter to Dr. Hopkins, to whom Miss Sullivan wrote those illuminating letters, the extracts from which give a better idea of her methods with her pupil than anything heretofore published.
John Hitz, Superintendent of the Volta Bureau for the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge relating to the Deaf and Mrs. Laurence Hutton, who supplied him with her large collection of notes and anecdotes Mr. Alexander, who have been unfailingly kind and have given for use in this book all the photographs which were taken expressly for the Journal and the Editor thanks Miss Keller's many friends who have lent him her letters to them and given him valuable information especially Mrs. The Editor desires to express his gratitude and the gratitude of Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan to The Ladies' Home Journal and to its editors, Mr. The addition of a further account of Miss Keller's personality and achievements may be unnecessary yet it will help to make clear some of the traits of her character and the nature of the work which she and her teacher have done.įor the third part of the book the Editor is responsible, though all that is valid in it he owes to authentic records and to the advice of Miss Sullivan.
Much of her education she cannot explain herself, and since a knowledge of that is necessary to an understanding of what she has written, it was thought best to supplement her autobiography with the reports and letters of her teacher, Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The first two, Miss Keller's story and the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her life as far as she can give it. A Celebration of Women Writers The Story of My Life.
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