The Diaries of Adam & Eve

The Diaries of Adam & Eve

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04  ·  rating details  ·  4,926 ratings  ·  425 reviews
Combined in one volume, these whimsical diaries are at bottom both an argument for women's equality and an irreverent look at conventional religion.
Paperback, 199 pages
Published May 1st 2000 by Prometheus Books (first published 1905)
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anca dc
~ la inceput, teribil de amuzanta. noroc ca eram singura in birou. [da, am inceput'o intr'o pauza la servici, dar nu a fost chip sa o las din mana. oricum, in mai putin de o ora se termina..:]. stropul de inceput:

Luni. Creatura asta noua cu parul lung ma cam incurca. Imi da mereu tarcoale si ma urmareste. Nu prea'mi place asta fiindca nu's obisnuit cu societatea. Mai bine statea cu celelalte animale...Azi e timp noros, bate vint de la rasarit. Cred ca o sa vina ploaia peste noi.."Noi"? De unde'
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Cate White
I'd say this was the original Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and would have been annoying bullshit if Mark Twain weren't so wry and humane. Apparently, his out-of-time insight into the construct of racial differences didn't carry over into gender. Adam wants to build stuff. Eve wants to talk all day. Adam wants his space. Eve just wants to relate. Anyway, after the Fall, Adam came to the conclusion that his lost connection to Eden was retained in his connection to Eve. Hence, all this...more
Jared
While Twain plays on and derives humor from some familiar gender stereotypes, this is in no way a one-joke piece. If anything, the book’s “gimmick”--the translation of previously undiscovered texts direct from the Garden of Eden--provides it with the fuel for genius. The man and the woman, while playing their traditional, stereotypical roles to perfection, also happen to be the first of their sexes. As a result, Adam and Eve are able to play out the battle of the sexes unhampered by the cultural...more
Tamra
Jan 08, 2009 Tamra rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who wants to laugh, but especially Twain fanatics
This version contains the artwork published in the 1904 and 1906 editions of Extracts from Adam's Diary and Eve's Diary, respectively. The artwork that goes along with Extracts from Adam's Diary is HILARIOUS! Done in caveman-type etchings, by Adam himself. Can you get better than that? No. You can take or leave the artwork from Eve's Diary. Some of it's funny, but mostly it's just cute.

I also enjoyed the insights offered by other authors on the significance of Mark Twain (like I didn't know, but...more
Tim Schaffer
I enjoyed it for what it was: funny, light satire, with a few serious, even touching moments thrown in to keep you on your toes. My reading was largely colored by the introduction included in my edition of the book. It provided background about what Twain attested was his inspiration: his own marriage. He saw himself as the cloddish Adam, at times annoyed and unappreciative, but in the end dependent on and fully indebted to his dearly loved wife. My favorite part of the book (one of it's serious...more
Prashant
Here's a short version of what Twain tried to say in this book

EVE'S DIARY

I have come to this world omniscient and I am just bored to death.

I saw a man today and he(I learned to call him 'he' and not 'it' out of nowhere) looked very ordinary.

The man always ignores me. I so desperately want his attention.

I have feelings, I see colors, I know the name of everything, I feel sad, I feel intrigued, I give love, I experiment, I am inquisitive and he is so grumpy!

I find all the new things in this wo...more
Gabe Dybing
Short, fun read. Took me just a few hours.

What's most cool about this book is not so much that it's Mark Twain as that it's kind of a Twain reconstruction. Evidently, the two diaries of Adam and Eve, in Twain's lifetime, never were published together. And evidently this is what he ultimately envisioned for the project.

This volume has a fabulous introduction and afterword explaining this and making interesting observations about the work itself and any connection to Twain's relationship with his...more
Allison W.
Oct 10, 2011 Allison W. rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: YAs & Up
Recommended to Allison W. by: Banned Book
Pick it up. Read it. Enjoy it fully. It is hard to imagine that one wouldn't - even if one isn't a fan of Twain.

I really enjoyed this book - much more than I thought I would or even could after my unpleasant feelings about Huck Finn. I really thought I'd never be able or even willing to read Twain again. This being an Oxford Edition, it comes with an interesting Preface and Afterwards and Notes.

What was so great about these two books, that are published together for the first time here, is that...more
Matthew
I bought this for the Diaries of Adam and Eve specifically, since Twain sets them in Niagara Falls, my own backyard pretty much. I was a little disappointed in the title stories, especially since I was expecting a lot out of them. But because of that, I was also pleasantly surprised in the short stories that came afterward.



Particularly, I laughed a lot during "The $30,000 Bequest" and found "Was It Heaven? Or Hell" pretty thought provoking. Both of those, while not really showing anything specta...more
Becky
Dec 15, 2009 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Naomi, Jayne, Tessa, Jeannette, and everyone else
(copied from my blog review of this short story)
Lately, I’ve been doing a little self-inflicted intervention to treat my addiction to fantasy novels. In the attempt, I’ve been trying to read such things as Aristotle, my old German grammar textbooks, Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, and works from author’s that everyone reads but I just haven’t gotten to. So, I checked out a collection of short stories by Mark Twain on my last trip to the library. I’d read the Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer stuff in high...more
Persephone Abbott
Given that this is Twain's take on the blueprint story of man and woman or woman and man, the stereotyping can be anticipated. The most engaging attitude of this collection of items that he wrote on the subject of Adam and Eve, is the look into the Bible, a divine and ridiculous source providing many personalities with very little character. Twain delights in taking this into account and elaborates with some glee upon these weaknesses of the Biblical texts or personalities. Even funnier is the f...more
Erik Graff
Apr 15, 2012 Erik Graff rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Twain fans
Recommended to Erik by: Lajla Stousland
Shelves: literature
I've read Twain's various Adam and Eve texts more than once. The first time was during childhood, while staying at the Michigan cottage belonging to Father's mother, Lajla. A great reader, she had a lot of books around, including several by Twain. A bored kid, I often turned to her libraries for entertainment.

The second time I read all or some of the texts was while in seminary in New York. I'd just finished the two volume set entitled The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Bible. Among very ma...more
Petra
I expected more from the title stories. Twain's wit & humor are evident and delightful but the diaries aren't that interesting. Eve talks a lot, so much so that Adam avoids her as much as possible. Adam seems to be a maintainer and fixes things, keeps things going, doesn't give thought to much beyond what needs to be done now. The two are polar opposites but they learn to live together and come to love each other. Eve adores Adam. Adam sees Eve as the Eden of life.
Maybe I missed something b...more
Neil Hanson
It has been a while since I read anything by Twain, and I’d forgotten just how delightful it is to read his stuff.

Folks who are pretty hung-up on political correctness will find it disturbing that Twain crafts his Adam and Eve characters around pretty common stereotypes of males and females. I wasn’t bothered by this at all, and found it quite interesting that the stereotypes from 150 years ago seem so consistent with our stereotypes from today.

This is a very quick read, but after finishing it,...more
Georgiana 1792
Eva: la prima scienziata della storia!

Meravigliosa la figura della prima donna (l'esperimento, come lei stessa si definisce) secondo Mark Twain: entusiasta, curiosa, fantasiosa, socievole, fiduciosa, inconsapevolmente poetica, ma soprattutto coraggiosa.
Coraggiosa perché non ha paura di fare esperimenti per cercare di capire come funzionano le cose nell'Eden, coraggiosa perché non ha paura di scoprire nuovi sentimenti, anche se sono dolorosi, coraggiosa perché non le importa se mangiare le mele...more
Nathaniel
I read this last night; it was quite short and very easy to read. I felt at first that it was pretty sexist, but the more I read, the more I felt that Twain must have loved his wife. By the end, I felt that essentially the book was a tribute to women. It made me smile as I thought of how my wife also, in effect, tells me to stop swimming over Niagra Falls.
Whitney
The Diary of Adam and Eve is like the book "Men are from Mars Women are from Venus". Adam and Eve are polar opposites with a complete misconception of what the other thinks of them (Eve especially). Adam would prefer to be left in peace where as Eve has gone all Snow White with the animals and refuses to shut up leaving anyone with a migraine headache. Even though I am not religious (and by judging from the prologue neither is Mark Twain) I always pictured the first man and woman to be eggheads...more
Thomas
Apr 16, 2013 Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Readers of literary fiction, the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and short stories.
Obviously, one of Mark Twain's later books, The Diary of Adam and Eve is actually more of a short story. Using something closer to 20th century language, Twain tells the creation story first from the perspective of Adam and then from that of Eve. The first couple's diaries are humorous and highlight the differences in the perspectives of man and woman under new and strange circumstances. Clearly, the Garden of Eden, itself, serves has a metaphor on at least one level. It was Twain's clear intent...more
Camila
This book was really good. I mean, it is not a four stars book, but... I liked it. I read it for my Literature Class and it was nice.
Mark Twain was a great writer and this book wasn't an expeception.
I really liked the humour on the diary and the fact that Adam and Eve talk about love with such a known about it, with such a big feeling that they can't understand it... Eve seems to think that she is the problem with that, but anyone can actually talk about love with confidence on the fact. Love i...more
Remo

Me habían recomendado esta obra hace un tiempo, y al fin la he encontrado. Es cortísima, de apenas 60 páginas. Mark Twain [MT], seudónimo de Samuel Clemens, era un cachondo. Suya es la frase de “Hay mentiras, malditas mentiras y estadísticas”, entre otras muchas que acuñó. En esta obra se ven reflejados los mismos acontecimientos vistos desde dos puntos de vista, el de Adán y el de Eva. Y aquí MT aprovecha para soltar todos los sarcasmos, ironías y divertimentos que puede acerca de las relacione

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Stacie
After reading Lori's review yesterday I took this off the shelf and put it "on deck." However, it kept looking at me and I couldn't help myself and picked it up...flashforward a few hours later and it was done!

It was a quick read to be sure. But, it was more so because it was engaging. Twain's style simply grabs hold of you and doesn't let you go until you are done.

I really enjoyed his characterizations of Adam and Eve, but my favorite part, albeit a short part, was Adam speaking about Noah. I l...more
Whitney Garrett
While the glaring inaccuracies of Adam and Eve being unhappy in Eden were slightly off-putting at first, I can't deny that this book is funny. From Adam just wishing that this "new creature" would go away and stop talking to Eve being sad that the moon has fallen out of the sky after the first night (obviously someone didn't secure it very well!) the diaries approach gender stereotypes in an amusing way. It's fun to read merely to think of the world in a new way through the first two pairs of ey...more
Kyle Wright
Sep 17, 2010 Kyle Wright rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Mark Twain fans
Recommended to Kyle by: Cami Bennion
The title stories were pretty interesting, but short. I would have very much liked to have seen them expanded upon with further character development as well as seeing these characters in various scenarios. The rest of the short stories were decent, but nothing too spectacular. My favorites were "The $30,000 Bequest" and "Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale". "The $30,000 Bequest" was an interesting take on how money, or even the perceived notion of wealth, can change people and make them lea...more
Stacy
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden and life after the Fall is told through first person accounts in diary form. Equal parts funny and tender, Twain has endowed our original parents with typical male and female personality traits. I especially enjoyed the bit about Adam being puzzled by a new baby. It's interesting to watch them learn and grow and understand life and all that it has to offer. I thought Mark Twain handled this in a way that was clearly comedic and removed from anything truly...more
Paul
Hilarious and very insightful. Mark Twain brilliantly explores what it could have been like for two very different people to discover the odd world around them. He does a great job at poking fun at the difference in men and women's perspectives. For example, when a baby is introduced to their world Adam thinks that it is a furless bear cub. He knows its not a fish because when he put it in a pond it just sank until Eve dived in to get it. Adam is also bewildered by Eve's compulsion to name every...more
Susan Kelley
What a beautiful love story! Told with Twain's usual humor, he still shows the reader (or listener, in my case) the great love story - that did not immediately happen - for our first humans.

With a forward and extras read by Walter Cronkite and Mandy Patinkin giving voice to Adam and Betty Buckley as Eve, the story of our first ancestors quickly takes shape. From fear at first meeting to arguments over naming rights all the way to the end, Twain creates the first love story with wit and sadness.

F...more
D.S. Nelson
After seeing a stage production of the Diaries of Adam and Eve I thought I'd read some of Mark Twains short stories.

The diaries of Adam and Eve are hilarious and it's hard to imagine Twain writing these stories in the nineteenth century. Described by one reviewer as the original Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, I think this sums it up nicely.

Five further stories go one to discuss the perils of wealth, telling a lie, a tearaway brother and holding onto the past are engaging and again sti...more
Boof
What a lovely little book. Twain explores what it could have been like for two very different people to discover the odd world around them and he does it with much humour. Watching both Adam and Eve play their sterotypical roles to perfection is redemed by Twain’s humour; Adam wanting to do nothing but build things and Eve wanting to do nothing but talk (much to Adam’s dismay) is both funny and lovable. Eve wants to discover everything; she names all the animal and mothers them all, she delights...more
BarbaraNathalie
Mark Twain's humor captivates me, and he has never disappointed me. I read this book of stories at about age fifteen, while studying in my school's library; I was targeted by the librarian, queen of silence, because I kept giggling.Twain, master of satire, kept getting me in trouble. His characters, the first humans, are delightfully unsophisticated. Adam is brooding, and relishes his time alone, after God presents him with a companion who won't stop talking.

This book is ingenious fun. Twain's...more
Lavinia
Dec 03, 2008 Lavinia rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Lavinia by: Vera
Brilliant! I was so impressed with it, that I told all my friends (who enjoy reading) to give it a try. At least one was enthusiastic about it.
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The Diary of Adam and Eve (Paperback)
The Diaries of Adam & Eve (Paperback)
The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Other Stories (Paperback)
The Diary of Adam and Eve (Modern Library Minis)
The Diaries of Adam & Eve (Hardcover)

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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also work...more
More about Mark Twain...
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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“After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.” 559 people liked it
“Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.” 63 people liked it
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