Eve's Diary illustrated

By Mark Twain

Eve's Diary illustrated Mark Twain - This story puts a new twist on a very old story: the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible. In the Bible story, Eve, the first woman, is created as a partner for Adam, the first man. When she tempts Adam into eating forbidden fruit, they are thrown out of the garden of Eden. Twain's story, however, is from Eve's point of view. It paints a picture of her as fully independent with likes, dislikes, joys, and sorrows. She is separate from Adam, and the story follows as she discovers him and eventually falls in love. Twain takes the original Adam and Eve story and puts Eve in a positive light, showing her as a complete person.

Eve's Diary (1906) is one of Twain's best stories, in which he addresses gender equity issues, using his iconic wit and satire. We mention this story in The Unreliable Narrator as a "Reliable Narrator" in contrast with Extracts from Adam's Diary.
On the first day of her existence in the Garden of Eden, Eve begins her diary, believing herself to be part of a great experiment.
Eve demonstrates a profound appreciation of and curiosity about her surroundings and attempts to win the affection of the insensitive Adam.
The two remain together after being expelled from the Garden, and after Eve's death, Adam reflects that Eden existed wherever Eve did.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Release date: Aug 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9783985940981

Mark Twain

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, novelist, and lecturer. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, a setting which would serve as inspiration for some of his most famous works. After an apprenticeship at a local printer’s shop, he worked as a typesetter and contributor for a newspaper run by his brother Orion. Before embarking on a career as a professional writer, Twain spent time as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi and as a miner in Nevada. In 1865, inspired by a story he heard at Angels Camp, California, he published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” earning him international acclaim for his abundant wit and mastery of American English. He spent the next decade publishing works of travel literature, satirical stories and essays, and his first novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873). In 1876, he published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a novel about a mischievous young boy growing up on the banks of the Mississippi River. In 1884 he released a direct sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which follows one of Tom’s friends on an epic adventure through the heart of the American South. Addressing themes of race, class, history, and politics, Twain captures the joys and sorrows of boyhood while exposing and condemning American racism. Despite his immense success as a writer and popular lecturer, Twain struggled with debt and bankruptcy toward the end of his life, but managed to repay his creditors in full by the time of his passing at age 74. Curiously, Twain’s birth and death coincided with the appearance of Halley’s Comet, a fitting tribute to a visionary writer whose steady sense of morality survived some of the darkest periods of American history.

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Eve's Diary

Translated from the Original

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SATURDAY.—I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what I AM—an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.

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Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position assured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. [That is a good phrase, I think, for one so young.]

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Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition, and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others, but that