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Laura Skandera Trombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today, reveals the never-before-read letters and daily journals of Isabel Lyon, Mark Twain’s last personal secretary.
For six years, Isabel Lyon was responsible for running the aging Man in White’s chaotic household, nursing him through several illnesses and serving as his adoring audience. But after a dramatic breakup of their relationship, Twain ranted in personal letters that she was “a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction.” For decades, biographers omitted Isabel from the official Twain history at his decree. But now, the truth of the split is exposed at last in a story that sheds light on a lionized author’s final decade.
- Sales Rank: #1052059 in Books
- Published on: 2011-03-08
- Released on: 2011-03-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .75" w x 5.20" l, .74 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Amazon.com Review
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)
From Publishers Weekly
In this book on Twain's last decade and his complicated relationship with his secretary, Isabel Lyon, Trombley is often too much the professor—quoting overlong passages when summary and interpretation would be better. An otherwise informative epilogue rambles. But when Trombley hits her stride, we learn quite a lot of the Twain household's secrets. Lyon wormed her way into Twain's life in the late 1880s as his favorite whist partner. Upon realizing the worth of Twain's letters, she obtained full power of attorney. She feuded with his hot-tempered daughter Clara over who would be in charge of his affairs. But the manipulative Lyon also truly loved the King, and in his loneliness after his wife's death, he was responsive. Twain's ultimate falling out with Lyon, including Twain's charges that she made unwanted sexual advances to him, make for painful reading and will be controversial. 43 photos. (Mar. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In his Mark Twain, Man in White (2009), Michael Sheldon follows a great author as he forges a luminous public image. In this provocative study, Trombley illuminates a woman—Isabel Van Kleek Lyon—whom Twain deliberately shoves into the shadows to protect his image. For six years his personal secretary, Lyon helps Twain with various professional concerns and with a family life complicated by one daughter’s epilepsy and by another daughter’s tempestuous amours. But readers see how bitter intrafamily conflict exposes Lyon to the wrath of Twain’s oldest surviving daughter, who views Lyon and her ambitious husband as threats, and how Twain’s carefully selected official biographer outmaneuvers her as a guardian of literary papers. Though not all readers will go as far as Trombley in crediting Lyon’s version of events, readers will confront considerable evidence that Twain cares more about shielding himself from negative publicity than about truth or fairness when he dismisses Lyon and subsequently heaps abuse upon her name. A strong challenge to the iconic image of an iconoclast. --Bryce Christensen
Most helpful customer reviews
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
If you're curious about Mark Twain read this book.
By Robert Busko
Mark Twain is one of my two favorite authors, the other being Robert Frost. With that said, I am a wee bit sensitive when I think someone is trying to belittle either of them. That was my initial fear when I saw the book "Mark Twain's Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years" by Laura Skandera Trombley. So many of our traditional cultural, historical, and literary icons have been sullied over recent years by both substantiated and unsubstantiated claims, that it's hard not to react negatively when a new expose is published.
Thankfully I picked the book up and looked at it and then did a little research on the Internet and discovered that while "Mark Twain's Other Woman" is not exactly complimentary to Mark Twain, it isn't a slash and burn attack on one of our larger than life and beloved literary figures.
Isabel Van Kleek Lyon was hired as a personal assistant (secretary) to Samuel Clemens in 1902. Lyon, it turns out, kept a detailed daily diary of Twain's final years: Who he saw, who he was mad at, what he did, and simply a register of his day to day activities. It is through this daily log, almost totally ignored by other Twain scholars, that Trombley develops her book.
Lyon joined the Clemens household in 1902, before Olivia, Clemens wife, died. It was very soon after that, however, that Clara Clemens, Mark Twain's eldest daughter, developed a dislike for Lyon. In the end Clara managed to convince her father that Lyon had stolen from him and the two launched an unstoppable campaign to smear Lyon's reputation.
Did Lyon's steal from the Mark Twain? Did she desire a physical relationship with the elder writer? Trombley does a good job of examining these and other issues. She does manage to fill in gaps and add to the Mark Twain story.
I'm not sure that I'm satisfied that Mark Twain's Other Woman is the complete story, however. Something happened that soured Twain on Lyons. Trombley does an excellent job at examining the known documents but is this the whole story? There is mystery here.
I highly recommend Mark Twain's Other Woman.
Peace to all.
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
A fascinating tale of the "other woman" in Mark Twain's late life
By Steven Peterson
A short time ago, I read a fine biography of Mark Twain by Ron Powers. One issue that intrigued me mightily was a very brief mention of two women in Twain's later life--Isabel Lyon and Laura Wright (later Dake). In both cases, Powers' discussion made me want to know more about each.
Well, this work discusses in much more depth the relationship between Lyon and Twain. And it is a pretty disturbing tale, of fight to the death nastiness among those in Twain's life. Isabel Lyon wrote well detailed notes on nearly a day-by-day basis in terms of her years with Twain. She served as a secretary, a colleague, the person who looked after his finances, running his household, and supervising his last home. A part of the picture was the fierce contention Lyon had with Twain's daughter Clara, with Twain's biographer, and so on. Sometimes the people could work together; at other times they fought fiercely.
Lyon was Twain's companion for much of the last 6 years of his life. At some point, he essentially kicked her out of his life and began vituperative attacks on her.
This book uses previously unused private papers of Lyon to outline the nature of the relationship with Twain--and other aspects of Twain's life. I am not an expert on Mark Twain, so I am not in a position to judge the validity of the author's findings. But this is powerful reading, and one wonders how someone who played such an important role in Twain's later life could be so effectively expunged from many works on Twain.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
A Tale That Needed Telling
By Photo Genie
I was fascinated by this account of Twain's final years. Using archival records,contemporaneous newspapers, and Isabel Van Kleek Lyon's diaries, author Trombley weaves an engrossing tale which makes events from 100 years ago vividly come to life. If you enjoy well-documented and carefully planned biographies, you'll like this work. It was worth the sixteen years the author took to complete it. I came away with little respect for most of the Clemens family, but at the same time I could understand clearly their motivations for their behavior. As for the almost forgotten Miss Lyon, she really deserved this work. I really sympathized with her and the way she was mistreated by the Clemens clan. At last, the true story is available to us all.
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