[Daffynition]

[sunbird]

Nice, Thank you for sharing! :-) My family likes Mark Twain

[rockinqsranch]

Whatever became of Samuel Clemmons?

[Jonah Hex]

[aruanan]

"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him," historian Laura Trombley was quoted as saying.

The latter, outspoken kind of guy is the impression I've always had of him.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

He was 89 when he died, so he would have been 84 or 85 when his wife died.

He called his longtime secretary names and said she tried to seduce him and hypnotize him to give her his power of attorney.

He wrote a vitrolic manuscript unlike anything else he had ever written in his last 6 months of life.

Really sounds to me like the great writer might have been suffering from Alzheimers or severe dementia by the end.

[Thermalseeker]

"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian.....

Really? I've read everything I could get my hands on about Twain and I've never had the impression that he was a "genteel Victorian". My impression of him is exactly the opposite..... and that is one of the things I like about him.

[SouthDixie]

last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." Mark Twain

It would appear Mr. Twain did not follow his own advise.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Huckleberry Finn was a decent book but I honestly find most of what I read by or about Twain/Clemmons overblown and tiresome. For a “humorist”, he’s just not that funny, at least by today’s standards. He’s got the curmudgeon bit down, that’s for sure, but it’s gets pretty old pretty fast. I really think it’s yet another case of the reality not living up to the hype. I’m sure I’ll get flamed, but OK, flame away.

[Varda]

I read much of his stuff as a teenager. I had the impression that as he aged the more bitter, depressed and angry he became. I guess I’ll find out if that was true when this is published.

[Joe 6-pack]

Figured you’d appreciate this :-)

[DemonDeac]

Nobody has given us more great quotes.

[Tainan]

bump for later reading - Mark Twain notes

[aimhigh]

It really is 400 pages of bile.

Since he hated God, I'm not surprised.

[laotzu]

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." -- Mark Twain (to Algore)

[Lockbar]

The reports of his demise have been greatly....oh, never mind.

[Tainan]

Clemmens was first and foremost a 'newspaperman.' His writings were a way for him to make a living, which he sometimes did splendidly and sometimes was head-over-heels-in debt, and to do his poking at what he thought needed a good poke.
This characterization of him as some sort of 'genteel literary figure' would, IMO, cause him to chortle and spit some tobacco juice at the foot of the author. Clemmens, or Twain, was far from such a person. He grew-up hard and considered himself an outside observer of the ridiculousness of human vanity. I recommend his "Letters from the Earth" for his take on the human condition. It also gives good insight on his idea of humans true status with the deities they might choose to worship.

As to his idea of society, read his Guide to Manners and see the humor he holds for how society is organized - and who is worth saving from a burning house - to watch him poke fun at those around him.
Twain suffered fools badly and he had a good venue to vent at those he thought worthy of his vent. He was a well-known lover of Kentucky Bourbon, a distiller still markets a brand in his honor, and it was a rare honor to be invited to his parlor at Nook to have a few bottles and discuss, or cuss, the leading issues of the day.
Financially Twain did very well. But like so many, he was a terrible money manager. He was always investing in some scheme brough to him...and losing. His tours on the lecture circuits were done mostly to pay his bills. His famous travels to Europe, as well as Egypt, were well-funded, and well received, but were done to get hard cash back to his debtors.
IMO, he has suffered from over-romanticism, like many famous people after their death. He was a hard-case and became famous for it. He also had the newspapermans' ethic of daily writing and of venting his spleen about topics and people in the public press. He made some powerful allies...and quite a few more enemies in his day. Combine these with his very well-known bad money habits and you had someone who had to write constantly to satisfy both his personal ethics and his staggering bills owed.

As to his personal life, it really wasn;t a source of much happiness for him. tragedy with children, a wife better suited to a banker and a lack-of-trust built upon being an easy touch over the years.

Clemmens/Twain was a true character. Just as good as any he wrote about. His life is a fascinating one to read about. He traveled widely. He was on a first name basis with all the "famous" people of his time. His daily antics received as much newspaper coverage as his literary works did publication...if not more.
He was that rare figure who was as interesting in real life as his writings made the characters of his work appear to be.

But "genteel Victorian"...no. He was far from that. Very far from that.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Daffynition! ... a section is on his scandalous relationship with a woman who became his secretary after his wife died... had instructed that his autobiography should not to be published till 100 years after his death... He left behind nearly 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs along with handwritten notes that said he didn't want them to be published for at least a century... the University of California, Berkeley, will release in November the first volume of the autobiography. The manuscript is in a vault there. The trilogy will run to half a million words... A section of the memoir will detail his relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after his wife Olivia died in 1904... [Lyon] once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. She was sacked in 1909 after Twain claimed she had "hypnotised" him into giving her the power of attorney over his estate... "He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile." Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Professional Engineer]

ping

[martin_fierro]

It really is 400 pages of bile.

Gee, I can hardly wait.