Dangerous intimacy : the untold story of Mark Twain's final years / Karen Lystra.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lystra, Karen, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910--Last years.

Twain, Mark.

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910--Relations with private secretaries.

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910--Relations with women.

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910--Finance, Personal.

Lyon, Isabel, 1863-1958.

Lyon, Isabel.

Authors, American--19th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (382 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2004]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The last phase of Mark Twain's life is sadly familiar: Crippled by losses and tragedies, America's greatest humorist sank into a deep and bitter depression. It is also wrong. This book recovers Twain's final years as they really were-lived in the shadow of deception and prejudice, but also in the light of the author's unflagging energy and enthusiasm. Dangerous Intimacy relates the story of how, shortly after his wife's death in 1904, Twain basked in the attentions of Isabel Lyon, his flirtatious-and calculating-secretary. Lyon desperately wanted to marry her boss, who was almost thirty years her senior. She managed to exile Twain's youngest daughter, Jean, who had epilepsy. With the help of Twain's assistant, Ralph Ashcroft, who fraudulently acquired power of attorney over the author's finances, Lyon nearly succeeded in assuming complete control over Twain's life and estate. Fortunately, Twain recognized the plot being woven around him just in time. So rife with twists and turns as to defy belief, the story nonetheless comes to undeniable, vibrant life in the letters and diaries of those who witnessed it firsthand: Katy the housekeeper, Jean, Lyon, and others whose own distinctive, perceptive, often amusing voices take us straight into the heart of the Clemens household. Just as Twain extricated himself from the lies, prejudice, and self-delusion that almost turned him into an American Lear, so Karen Lystra liberates the author's last decade from a century of popular misunderstanding. In this gripping book we at last see how, late in life, this American icon discovered a deep kinship with his youngest child and continued to explore the precarious balance of love and pain that is one of the trademarks of his work.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note On Names

1. Mark Twain-And Sam's Women

2. Heartbreak

3. Rearranging The Household

4. Looking For Love

5. A Pact With The Devil

6. Life In The Sanitarium

7. Someone To Love Him And Pet Him

8. A Viper To Her Bosom

9. Innocence At Home

10. Stormfield

11. An American Lear

12. Illusions Of Love

13. Unraveling

14. The Exile Returns

15. Confrontation

16. A Formidable Adversary

17. False Exoneration

18. The Funniest Joke In The World

19. Melting Marble With Ice

20. The End Of My Autobiography

Epilogue: How Little One May Tell

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-324) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786613277145

9781283277143

128327714X

9780520940376

0520940377

9781597345712

1597345717

OCLC:

475931871