3 Review(s)

The story of Helen Keller, the young girl who triumphed over deafness and blindness, has been indelibly marked into our cultural consciousness. That triumph, shared with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, has been further popularized by the play and film "The Miracle Worker". Yet the original version of Keller and Sullivan's story, first published in 1903 has been out of print for many years and lost to the public. Now, 100 years after its initial publication, Roger Shattuck, in collaboration with Keller biographer Dorothy Hermann, has re-edited 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 editions; and documentation by their young assistant John Macy.