One of the "hundred most important books of the twentieth century" (New York Public Library), finally published in complete form.

The publication of The Story of My Life in 1903 revealed Helen Keller's astonishing life to the age of twenty-two. The book's honest and absorbing narrative dispelled the notoriety and scandal that had accompanied her treatment in the press. Many people simply could not believe that Anne Sullivan, an unknown young woman from Boston, had fought her way through seven-year-old Helen's deafness and blindness and had taught her to talk and to hear with her fingers. Skeptics, doubting that Helen could read and write better than most children her age, thought that she and Anne Sullivan must be charlatans and publicity seekers.

With evident candor, The Story of My Life explained the "miracle" of Helen's education and the degree to which she had become a full human being sharing and enjoying the visible and audible world. The book presented three interlocking versions of the story: Helen's own; Anne Sullivan's; and their assistant, John Macy's. For over sixty years following the book's publication, Helen's writings and her inspiring public appearances served the causes of the deaf and the blind, the poor and the mistreated, the wounded in two wars, and the handicapped everywhere. When she died in 1968, Helen was widely compared to a saint. The New York Times referred to her as "a symbol of the indomitable human spirit."

The present edition of The Story of My Life, appearing one hundred years after its first publication, will help prevent a great loss—the loss of one of our most admirable and appealing heroes. The immense obstacles that Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan overcame working alone in Alabama surpass Helen's accomplishments as an adult. Between the ages of seven and twenty, Helen enlarged the meaning of the word heroism.

The evidence is all here, in The Story of My Life, of a genuinely beautiful mind. Handicaps and celebrity never warped it. Mark Twain called Helen the most extraordinary woman since Joan of Arc. Everyone, young and old, should know about this compellingly human, deeply spiritual, and unfailingly courageous young woman. The best approach is to read her own words and those of her teacher in The Story of My Life.

This new edition is called "the restored classic" for several reasons. All recent editions have been abridged. In this edition a few changes in order and layout clarify the narrative. With a Foreword and Afterword by Roger Shattuck, and with illuminating notes by Dorothy Herrmann, Helen Keller's highly praised biographer, this volume will remain the definitive edition of this classic work for years to come.