About this item
One of the "hundred most important books of the twentieth century" (New York Public Library) , finally published in complete form. The story of Helen Keller, the young girl who triumphed over deafness and blindness, has been indelibly marked into our cultural consciousness. That triumph, shared with her teacher Anne Sullivan, has been further popularized by the play and movie The Miracle Worker. Yet the astonishing original version of Keller's and Sullivan's story, first published in 1903, has been out of print for many years and lost to the public. Now, one hundred years after its initial publication, eminent literary scholar Roger Shattuck, in collaboration with Keller biographer Dorothy Herrmann, has reedited the book to reflect more accurately its original composition.
About the Author
Blind and deaf since infancy, American memoirist and lecturer Helen Adams Keller learned to read, to write, and to speak from her teacher , graduated from Radcliffe in 1904, and lectured widely on behalf of sightless people; her books include Conditions bound not Keller. Scarlet fever rendered her deaf and blind at 19 months; she in several languages and as a student wrote . In this age, few women then attended college, and people often relegated the disabled to the background and spoke of the disabled only in hushed tones, when she so remarkably accomplished. Nevertheless, alongside many other impressive achievements, Keller authored 13 books, wrote countless articles, and devoted her life to social reform. An active and effective suffragist, pacifist, and socialist (the latter association earned her a file of Federal Bureau of Investigation) , she lectured on behalf of disabled people everywhere. She also helped to start several foundations that continue to improve the lives of the deaf and blind around the world. As a young girl, obstinate Keller, prone to fits of violence, seethed with rage at her inability to express herself. Nevertheless, at the urging of Alexander Graham Bell, Anne Sullivan, a teacher, transformed this wild child at the age of 7 years in an event that she declares "the most important day I remember in all my life. " (After a series of operations, Sullivan, once blind, partially recovered her sight. ) In a memorable passage, Keller writes of the day "Teacher" led her to a stream and repeatedly spelled out the letters on one of her hands while pouring water over the other. This method proved a revelation: "That living world awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. " And, indeed, most of them were.
