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EDITOR'S NOTE: Portions of quotes and the poem in this column from Sam Clemens about Isabel Lyon have been edited slightly from their original versions.
Noted Twain scholar Laura Skandera Trombley has written a book — a scintillating book about an obscure woman's relationship with the world's first global celebrity. She was his private, very private, secretary … was there more going on here than stenography? Trombley lays out the circumstantial evidence, and there's a bushel of it … then lets us decide.
There's no question that Sam adored his wife, Livy, and that he was dedicated to her to the end, but after Livy got promoted to glory, well, his old heart just might have harkened back to those halcyon days in San Francisco when they were reportedly, “sparking the scullery maids.”
Several questions come to mind…
1) Was Isabel Lyon in love with a man nearly 30 years her senior?
Trombley offers this teaser from Lyon's daily journals, “Never never on sea or shore of spiritual or terrestrial being could there be a man to equal Mr. Clemens.”
2) Did Lyon have designs on Clemens?
“…his cigar between his fingers, the smoke and like incense curling affectionately about him…”
3) Did Lyon embezzle Clemens in the end?
Though Sam was convinced she did, I tend to believe she didn't. But then I haven't read the 429 page Lyon-Ashcroft character assassination that Twain left unpublished. About Ashcroft we can talk another time. One thing is certain, the case makes for a great mock trial for some enterprising AP English students.
A friend of mine who read “Mark Twain's Other Woman” was quick to ask, “Might this be the Sally Hemmings that brought down Jefferson's house?” I don't think so. Most of the damage is done by Sam himself in his characterization of Isabel, “… a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded & salacious s--t pining for seduction.” He was even moved to pen a poem about her:
“Who feeds on bromides and on scotch
To keep her nerves at highest notch?
Who makes of business books a botch?
The B---h.”
And yet, she speaks kindly of him, “His private humor was one of his most darling possessions. subtle — often profound & often soaring with a swift birdlike flight into the upper reaches of men's mental skies. Never the obvious Mark Twain, timed and tuned for a mixed audience.”
Interesting to me is that Sam's daughter Clara claimed Isabel wrecked her life with bromides and alcohol, and yet Isabel lived to be 95! Imagine how long she could have lived? Clara, if you're wondering, live to be 88, and Sam, a responsible soaker in his own right, went out with Halley's Comet at 74 years of age on the 21st of April, 1910.
Laura Skandera Trombley, now president of Pitzer College, spent sixteen years researching a question I've pondered for as long or longer, “Did Sam Clemens attenuate his amanuensis?” You must read her book, then decide for yourself.
— McAvoy Layne is an Incline Village resident who visits area schools as the ghost of Mark Twain, Learn more at www.ghostoftwain.com.
Noted Twain scholar Laura Skandera Trombley has written a book — a scintillating book about an obscure woman's relationship with the world's first global celebrity. She was his private, very private, secretary … was there more going on here than stenography? Trombley lays out the circumstantial evidence, and there's a bushel of it … then lets us decide.
There's no question that Sam adored his wife, Livy, and that he was dedicated to her to the end, but after Livy got promoted to glory, well, his old heart just might have harkened back to those halcyon days in San Francisco when they were reportedly, “sparking the scullery maids.”
Several questions come to mind…
1) Was Isabel Lyon in love with a man nearly 30 years her senior?
Trombley offers this teaser from Lyon's daily journals, “Never never on sea or shore of spiritual or terrestrial being could there be a man to equal Mr. Clemens.”
2) Did Lyon have designs on Clemens?
“…his cigar between his fingers, the smoke and like incense curling affectionately about him…”
3) Did Lyon embezzle Clemens in the end?
Though Sam was convinced she did, I tend to believe she didn't. But then I haven't read the 429 page Lyon-Ashcroft character assassination that Twain left unpublished. About Ashcroft we can talk another time. One thing is certain, the case makes for a great mock trial for some enterprising AP English students.
A friend of mine who read “Mark Twain's Other Woman” was quick to ask, “Might this be the Sally Hemmings that brought down Jefferson's house?” I don't think so. Most of the damage is done by Sam himself in his characterization of Isabel, “… a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded & salacious s--t pining for seduction.” He was even moved to pen a poem about her:
“Who feeds on bromides and on scotch
To keep her nerves at highest notch?
Who makes of business books a botch?
The B---h.”
And yet, she speaks kindly of him, “His private humor was one of his most darling possessions. subtle — often profound & often soaring with a swift birdlike flight into the upper reaches of men's mental skies. Never the obvious Mark Twain, timed and tuned for a mixed audience.”
Interesting to me is that Sam's daughter Clara claimed Isabel wrecked her life with bromides and alcohol, and yet Isabel lived to be 95! Imagine how long she could have lived? Clara, if you're wondering, live to be 88, and Sam, a responsible soaker in his own right, went out with Halley's Comet at 74 years of age on the 21st of April, 1910.
Laura Skandera Trombley, now president of Pitzer College, spent sixteen years researching a question I've pondered for as long or longer, “Did Sam Clemens attenuate his amanuensis?” You must read her book, then decide for yourself.
— McAvoy Layne is an Incline Village resident who visits area schools as the ghost of Mark Twain, Learn more at www.ghostoftwain.com.
