Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880. She was an American author, political activist and lecturer. When she was 19 months old she contracted what might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Keller was blind and deaf from that point on. Her story was made world famous by the movie The Miracle Worker. The essays and poem in The World I Live In originally appeared in the Century Magazine. Although this book is autobiographical, it is also a description of how Ms Keller used her hands and the hands of others to experience her world.