Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years

Mark Twain's Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years

• ISBN13: 9780307273444
• Condition: New
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An enduring mystery in Mark Twain’s life concerns the events of his last decade, from 1900 to 1910.

Despite many Twain biographies, no one has ever determined exactly what took place during those final years after the death of Twain’s wife of thirty-four years and how those experiences affected him, personally and professionally. For nearly a century, it was believed that Twain went to his death a beloved, wisecracking iconoclastic American (“I am not an American,” Twain wrote; “I am the American”), undeterred by life’s sorrows and challenges.

Laura Skandera Trombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today, suspected that there had to be more to the story than the cultivated, carefully constructed version that had been intact for so long. Trombley went in search of the one woman whom she suspected had played the largest role in Twain’s life during those final years and who possibly held the answers to her questions about Twain’s life and writings.

Now, in Mark Twain’s Other Woman, after sixteen years of research, uncovering never-before-read papers and personal letters, Trombley tells the full story through Isabel Lyon’s meticulous daily journals, the only detailed record of Twain’s last years that exists, journals overlooked by Twain’s previous biographers.

For one hundred years, Isabel Van Kleek Lyon has been the mystery woman in Mark Twain’s life. Twain spent the bulk of his last six years in the company of Isabel, who was responsible for overseeing his schedule and finances, nursing him through several illnesses, managing his increasingly unmanageable daughters, running his household, arranging amusements, as well as presiding over the construction of his final residence. Isabel Lyon also served as Twain’s adoring audience (she called him “the King”), listening attentively as he read aloud to her what he’d written that day. She was Twain’s gatekeeper to an enthralled public.

Trombley writes about what happened between them that resulted in the dramatic breakup of their relationship; about how, in Twain’s final months, he gave bitter, angry press conferences denouncing her; how he ranted in personal letters that she had injured him, calling her, “a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded & salacious slut pining for seduction.” Trombley writes that Twain’s invective bordered on obsession (he wrote about Isabel for hours every day, even while suffering from angina pains and gout attacks) and about how, despite the inordinate attention he gave her before his death, Isabel Lyon has remained a friendless ghost haunting the margins of Twain’s biography.

For decades, biographers deliberately omitted her from the official Twain story. Her potentially destructive power was so great that Twain’s handpicked hagiographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, allowed only one timorous reference to her in his massive three-volume work, Mark Twain: A Biography (1912).

Isabel Lyon was a forgotten woman, “so private,” she wrote in her journal, “that the very mention of me [was] with held from the world. . .”

This riveting, dark story that “the King” determined no one would ever tell is now revealed at last.A Q&A with Laura Skandera Trombley

Question: Who was Isabel Van Kleek Lyon and why don’t we know more about her?

Laura Skandera Trombley: Isabel was Mark Twain’s confidant, personal assistant and social secretary during the last years of his life. She is a relative unknown in Twain scholarship because of a falling out that she had with Mark Twain and his two daughters, Clara and Jean. Because of her access to the family--she lived in the same home with Twain during her six years with him--she knew the family’s secrets and they eventually resorted to blackmailing her to guarantee that she would never attempt to claim a place in his life. Subsequent biographers either knew that the family was very opposed to any mention of Isabel or they ignored her due to her working class status and gender. Also, Twain wrote a scandalous fictionalized document about her that some biographers have mistakenly taken as truth.

Question: What was the nature of Isabel’s relationship with Mark Twain?

Laura Skandera Trombley: The two were emotionally intimate confidants. Isabel was charged with handling every aspect of Mark Twain’s life. Isabel decided who was allowed to see Twain, what he would eat, what he would wear, etc. Twain was utterly dependent upon her--physically, intellectually and emotionally--and he suffered enormously after he was forced by his daughters to fire her.

Question: In this book, you draw on primary documents by and about Isabel that have not been explored before. How did you come across them?

Laura Skandera Trombley: I did primary research for 16 years, traveled from coast to coast working in archives and historical societies, and did a much closer examination of Isabel’s papers than any previous Twain scholar. I discovered that the Vassar College archive held half of Isabel’s journal and the Mark Twain Papers at UC Berkeley had the other half. I am the only Twain scholar who has ever read all of Isabel’s writings. Several years ago, I met with Isabel’s relatives and they released letters and photographs to me that no scholar had previously seen.

Question: Why have these papers not previously been brought to light?

Laura Skandera Trombley: The first Twain scholars were aware that there had been a great deal of unpleasantness in the family during those final years (although they didn’t know what it was about) and didn’t want to air unflattering family secrets. Also Twain’s daughter Clara lived until the early 1960s and there was no possibility that any mention could have been made of Isabel while Clara was still alive due to the animosity she felt toward her father’s former secretary. Subsequent biographers simply accepted the cover story that Twain created; he was a genius, after all, and one of our finest fiction writers, and they were predisposed not to pay much attention to a pink-collar worker’s writings.

Question: How would you characterize Twain’s relationships with women? It’s clear from your book that he relied upon women immensely, yet he managed to alienate his daughters Clara and Jean and viciously turned against Isabel.

Laura Skandera Trombley: As an individual who was obsessed with control, Twain in his last years found himself for the first time in a situation that he could not directly influence through the strength of his sheer will or force of his personality. Jean, his youngest daughter, was very ill with severe epilepsy and no matter the amount of railing Twain did against man and God, the situation was not going to change. Clara, his middle daughter, is a turn-of-the-century example of the perils of being the child of the most famous man in the world, and she was every bit as iconoclastic as her father. Isabel really was an intelligent, desperate woman, determined to improve her social station in life. While Twain cared for them all, in the end his narcissism prevailed and he painstakingly constructed the way he would be remembered by the public. To achieve that end, he sacrificed those closest to him.

Question: Isabel has been cast in many lights: a social climber, a "new woman" with career ambitions, a faithful companion and Mark Twain himself once, late in their relationship, called her a "salacious slut." After writing this book, what is your own opinion of Isabel? What is the most important thing that you wish to set straight in her historical record?

Laura Skandera Trombley: Isabel was an intelligent woman trapped by historical circumstance. She was born to the upper middle class and, due to the deaths of her father, uncle, and brother, she was forced to enter into service. She was shrewd enough to know that her options were limited and she was not satisfied to serve the rest of her life as a nanny or secretary. With that said, she was also genuinely fond of Twain and was his greatest admirer. She showed the most decency among all of the people involved by forgiving Twain’s many wrongs toward her. Those who might cast her as a scarlet woman or sycophant fail to understand how difficult life was for women like Isabel at the time, and how she managed to move forward with her life despite many, many disappointments.

(Photo © John Lucas)

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Hands Off My Belly: The Pregnant Woman's Survival Guide to Myths, Mothers, and Moods

• ISBN13: 9781591027539
• Condition: USED - Very Good
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Expectant mothers are virtual magnets for unsolicited advice. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, sisters-in-law, new mothers, friends, and even strangers offer what seems to be an endless supply of supposedly authoritative opinions on every aspect of pregnancy: A craving for spicy food denotes a boy. Carrying the baby low denotes a girl. Besides gender predictions, a pregnant woman is also apt to acquire an earful of advice about miscarriage, dietary habits and cravings, hair growth, weight gain, and childbirth. And, of course, everyone wants to touch her belly. In this engaging, humorous, and very informative book, Drs Shawn A Tassone and Kathryn Landherr - experienced gynecologists, a husband-and-wife team of physicians, and parents of four children - explore the most common superstitions and myths surrounding pregnancy. From their combined twenty years of work in a clinic, as well as their own parenting experience, the authors review the anecdotes and beliefs, from the slightly unusual to the stranger-than-fiction, and compare them with the scientific evidence. Moving through each stage, from the early weeks of pregnancy to delivery, they examine the legends about diet, gender identification, pre-term labour, the umbilical cord, initiating labour, and the size and movement of the foetus. As they detail the scientific perspective on these varied and often amusing beliefs, the authors not only entertain but provide a great deal of practical information, which will ease the fears and anxieties of expectant parents as well as clear up many confusing notions. If you are pregnant, you owe it to yourself to get this book. Better yet, suggest it as the perfect gift to all those well-meaning advice givers.

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