The Story of My Life [antikvár]

H INTRODUCTION ELEN KELLER was born on the 27th June 1880 in Tuscumbia, a little town in Alabama, one of the south-eastern states of the United States of America. In February 1882 a severe illness took away her sight and hearing. Although still unable to see or hear, she is at the present time Adviser to the American Foundation for the blind and is known all over the world for her labours on behalf of the blind and the deaf. She began to write The Story of mj Life when she was about thirteen years of age. It was published in 1903 when she was twenty-three. In it she describes some experiences of her childhood and girlhood and of her three years at Radcliffe College. She took her final examinations there in 1903. She tells how dark her life was before Miss Sullivan came to be her teacher on the 3rd of March 1887. Not only was the little Helen blind and deaf, but through her deafness she had lost the ability to speak. So, indeed, her life was dark and silent. She often could not make herself understood and her failures made her quick tempered and difficult to control. Miss Sullivan had been blind as a child but had recovered her sight. Her work with Helen was entered on as a kind of thank-offering. It became a labour of love, for in a very short time the excitable and difficult child became happy, loving and very lovable. She was a pretty little girl with a sweet and lively