Mark and Livy
The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who Almost Tamed Him
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- 28,99 €
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- 28,99 €
Publisher Description
Olivia Langdon Clemens was not only the love of Mark Twain's life and the mother of his children, she was also his editor, muse, critic and trusted advisor. She read his letters and speeches. He relied on her judgment on his writing, and readily admitted that she not only edited his work, but also edited his public persona.Until now, little has been known about Livy's crucial place in Twain's life. In Resa Willis's affecting and fascinating biography, we meet a dignified, optimistic women who married young, raised three sons and a daughter, endured myriad health problems and money woes and who faithfully traipsed all over the world with Twain - Africa, Europe, Asia - while battling his moodiness and her frailty.Twain adored her. A hard-drinking dreamer with an insatiable wanderlust, he needed someone to tame him. It was Livy who encouraged him to finish his autobiography even through the last stages of her illness. When she died in 1904, Twain's zest for life and writing was gone. He died six years later.
A triumph of the biographer's art, Mark and Livy presents the fullest picture yet of one of the most influential women in American letters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Olivia Langston (1845-1904) married Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in 1870 and remained his wife for 34 years. In line with the conventions of the times, she saw herself as a wife, mother and ``tamer'' of iconoclastic Twain. However as Willis, literature professor at Drury College in Missouri, points out in this carefully researched, readable biography, Langston was also his valued critic and editor. In humorous anecdotes Twain portrayed ``Livy'' as a shrew--but the relationship between the mild-mannered, self-effacing woman and the cantankerous literary genius was apparently one of deep commitment and love. Their affection for one another, claims Willis, saw them through the rise and fall of their financial fortunes, the death of their daughter and Livy's many illnesses. The author's access to letters and journals gives insight into both husband and wife, as well as providing a portrait of American domestic life in the late 1800s.