Helen Keller was born in Alabama, U.S. on June 27, 1880. An illness diagnosed as 'brain fever' at the time left her deaf and blind when she was only nineteen months of age. She spent the first years of her life in isolation, cut off from the world and having little understanding of what was going on around her. However, in March, 1887, when she was less than seven years old, she met the person who was going to change her life. Anne Mansfield Sullivan, a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, came to their house and undertook the difficult task of teaching Helen. Soon the little girl grew attached of her teacher and the two became inseparable. The bond between them became stronger and stronger as time went by and it could only be broken by Anne's death in 1936.
The amazing methods Anne used to help the little blind and deaf girl overcome her disability and become aware of the world around her are described by Helen in her autobiography entitled The Story of My Life. Soon the wild uncontrollable child grew into a wise and responsible woman who had a lot to say to the world and still has a lot to say to us today.
By her personal example, Helen Keller revolutionized people's outlook on disability and revealed the amazing potential of the human being. She learned Braille and used it to read not only English but also French, German, Greek and Latin. At the age of 24, she was the first deafblind person in history to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree after graduating college with Magna cum Laude. She became a prolific writer and a world-famous speaker. She campaigned for various progressive causes, such as women's suffrage, workers' right and birth control.
Helen Keller wrote several books and articles. At the age of 23 she published her famous autobiography, The Story of My Life. Other works include The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), Light in My Darkness (1927) and the poem The Song of the Stone Wall.
To download the free e-book The Story of My Life by Helen Keller, click here.
