Helen Keller Biography and List of Works

American writer, who proved how language could liberate the blind and the deaf, and remapped the boundaries of sight and sense. Keller became a world-famous inspiration for others. In An Intimate History of Humanity (1994) Theodore Zeldin wrote "no history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller... whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person."

"Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare."
(from The Story of My Life, 1903)

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She lost her hearing and sight at 19 months of age. As she grew up, she managed to learn to do tiny errands, but also realized that she was missing something. She was sent to a state school for the blind, but failed first grade because she could not read Braille. 1887 Anne Sullivan became her tutor and under the tutelage she discovered that words were related to things. She learned to speak, to use sign language, to read Braille, and to type. She attended the Wright-Humason School for the deaf in New York (1894-96), the Cambridge school for Young Ladies (1896-1900), and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 with honours. In 1903 appeared her book THE STORY OF MY LIFE. She wrote the text with her Braille machine to make corrections, but she also used a typewiter. Her manuscripts seldom contained typographical errors.

Keller's life was not free from financial problems. In 1919 she began a four-year stretch appearing with Sullivan in vaudeville shows. She made lecture tours to promote interest in the handicapped, wrote several books, and appeared on the Orpheum Circuit for two years to support herself. She visited American veteran's hospitals after WW II and made many tours in Europe, Asia, and Africa. From 1914 her secretary was Miss Polly Thomson. In her book MIDSTEREAM (1930) Keller depicted how she was hungry for the words - "Literature is my Utopia."

Mark Twain declared that the two most interesting characters of his century were Napoleon and Helen Keller. People who knew Keller underlined her good sense of humour and imagination. She made considerable progress in the study of arithmetic and her autobiography showed unusual literary talent. Some of the stories Sullivan read to her in her childhood later left traces to Keller's own writings. "The young writer, as Stevenson had said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is only after years if this sort of practice that even great men have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind." (from The Story of My Life) Among others Margaret T. Canby's fairy tale 'The Frost Fairies' was read to her in the summer of 1888, when she was eight years old. Keller forgot it completely, but four years later she produced her own interpretation, 'The Frost King.' The style of her version was in some respects better than the original work.

Keller was an activist for racial and sexual equality, and her left-wing opinions engendered the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, to keep a file on her. In 1959 The Miracle Worker was aired on television, and it was later adapted for the stage and film. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, in Westport.

'Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities."'
(from The Story of My Life)

Anne Sullivan (1866-1936), originally Joanna Mansfield Sullivan - Born in Feeding Hills, MA. Sullivan was nearly blind from childhood fever. She was educated at the Perkins Institution in Waltham, MA. She taught the seven-year-old Helen Keller, and managed to brake through her isolation by spelling out words on her hand. For the rest of her life she remained Keller's companion, and also established her own reputation as an author, lecturer, and advocate for the deaf. - Film: The Miracle Worker (1962), a study of the struggle between liberty and discipline, was based on Helen Keller's story. It was written by William Gibson from his play, directed by Arhur Penn and awarded with two Oscar's. Anne Bancroft was in the role of Annie Sullivan, repeating her stage success. She was voted best actress. Patty Duke as Helen Keller won the Best Supporting Actress award. - Other writers who were blind or had difficulties with eyesight: Homer, John Milton, James Joyce

THE STORY OF MY LIFE, (1903)