Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Preface 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

About the Author

Karen Lystra is Professor of American Studies at California State University at Fullerton. She is the author of Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America (1989).

Reviews

"A brilliant literary detective, Lystra is also particularly good at presenting the prejudicial myths." - Anthony Glavin, Irish Times "Explores a chapter in the life of America's greatest storyteller, one he deeply regretted to the day he died. It is a chapter full of Victorian melodrama. At times, it reads like a steamy romance novel; at other times, like a textbook on power by Machiavelli." - Hartford Courant "Lystra's narrative moves quickly, and offers an illuminating portrait of an aging Twain. The research is thorough, the personalities colorful." - The Jerusalem Post "This gripping examination of Twain's later life recounts a family drama so fantastic it reads like the subplot of a daytime soap.... For all its intrigue and melodrama, this is a remarkably powerful and moving study." - Library Journal"