Out of print for nearly a century, The World I Live InThe World I Live In is Helen Keller's most personal and intellectually adventurous work—one that transforms our appreciation of her extraordinary achievements. Here this preternaturally gifted deaf and blind young woman closely describes her sensations and the workings of her imagination, while making the provocative argument that the whole spectrum of the senses lies open to her through the medium of language. Standing in the line of the works of Emerson and Thoreau, The World I Live InThe World I Live In is a profoundly suggestive exercise in self-invention, and a true, rediscovered classic of American literature.
This new edition of The World I Live InThe World I Live In also includes Helen Keller's early essay "Optimism," as well as her first published work, "My Story," written when she was twelve.
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become known worldwide through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker.
A prolific author, Keller was well traveled and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She campaigned for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and socialism, as well as many other progressive causes.
Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States' highest two civilian honors.
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