The Story of My Life

The Restored Classic

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by Helen Keller,

Edited by Roger Shattuck and Dorothy Herman

W. W. Norton and Co.

Due/Published June 2004, 496 pages, paper

ISBN 0393325687

New in paper (S04)

One of the "hundred most important books of the twentieth century" (according to the 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 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 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, Roger Shattuck, in collaboration with Keller biographer Dorothy Herrmann, has reedited the book to reflect more accurately its original composition. Keller's remarkable acquisition of language is presented here in three successive accounts: Keller's own version; the letters of "teacher" Anne Sullivan, submerged in the earliest edition; and the valuable documentation by their young assistant, John Macy. Including opening and closing commentary by Shattuck and notes by Hermann, this volume will stand for years as the definitive edition of a classic work. 10 b/w illustrations.