This topic has brought up for me the interesting (to me) progression of my
journey with Mark Twain.

I first read Mark Twain when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, making it about
1960-61.  It was Tom Sawyer and I never waned that book to end.  As I got
older I practically cleaned out the Malden (MA) Public Library on Twain.  I
read every book I could find about him, many two or more times.  I really
enjoyed books with pictures of him and his family, and can even remember
having a powerful, but weird, crush on one of his daughters, maybe Susie, as
she appeared in a candid photo costumed for a play the girls put on with
friends.

As a kid and even as a young person, I seem not to have read any of the
great books about Mark Twain's struggles or ordeals.  I always had a picture
of his life as having been idyllic.  He had a beautiful wife, three
beautiful daughters, an amazing home, a wonderful summer getaway, plenty of
money, travelled the world.  It was particularly his family life in the
1870s and 1880s that stuck with me.  It seemed so magical and so completely
unlike my own home life as a kid.  I just loved to think of those times and
hoped some day maybe I would grow up and have some family experiences such
as I imagined the Clemenses had had in Hartford and Elmira.

So much of his life apparently completely escaped me when I was young.

Fast forward 30 years, during which I had various forms of work and school
before settling into a career as a university professor of information
systems.  I didn't get to connect much with Twain in those years.  But
recently I discovered a wonderful bookstore in a little village near here
called Eagles Mere.  It's located maybe an hour south of Elmira, and I'm
another 20 minutes of so south of that.  Peggy from the bookstore has
ordered me a ton of books, many of them about Mark Twain.  I've really
enjoyed immersing myself in his life again.  But I have completely different
impressions of that life now.  He seems so much more human within his family
than he used to.  I discover that he blamed himself for Livy's loss of
faith.  That he struggled at times to make ends meet in that big house and
usually lived beyond his means, or right at the edge.  That he was a truly
abysmal businessman.  I find, to my surprise, that his children at times
really didn't like him, that they chaffed at their parents' constraints and
morality.  I find that Susie may have experienced a lesbian relationship,
and that she seems to have been a very depressed and unhappy young woman
whose early death is even more heartbreaking for that knowledge.  I had had
no idea that Jean was subject to epileptic seizures, or at least not the
extent of her illness and how it completely stunted her social life and her
relationship with her family.  I've been heartbroken to read about her life.
I find that Clara seems to have been at once a dutiful daughter and a
maverick happy to spend her dad's money and an early sort of "jet-setter"
(ocean-liner-setter?).  I find that her marriage to Ossip may have been
arranged.  I see from a recent post in this thread that Ossip may have
physically abused her.  And that she may have been mean to her daughter, who
seems to have had a very unhappy life.

None of this was in the books I read back in the 60s and early 70s, or else
I was too young to understand it and take it in.  Some of it saddens me, and
disillusions me.  But it also fascinates me, and makes people whom I
idealized as a boy seem to be real human beings who had real lives and real
pains, tragedies, struggles, loves, etc.  They seem much more real to me
than they did years ago.

I wonder if there are books that go into more detail about the lives of
Susie, Clara, and Jean.  Or about Mark Twain's home life and his actual
relationship with Livy.  I think Sam and Livy always loved each other very
much, but I sense from what I read that there came a point where she just
could not deal with him very well anymore.

Can anyone suggest any books on these topics I have touched upon?  I'm also
curious to know if anyone else has had a similar progression of
understanding with Mark Twain over the years.

Thanks.  Sorry for the long post.

Carl