I received Mary Lawton's _A Lifetime with Mark Twain: The Memories of Katy
Leary, for Thirty Years His Faithful and Devoted Servant_, a book
originally published in 1925, as you know. I did not know that this 2015
reissue by Applewood Books (with a nice binding for a paperback) had a
short intro by Steve Courtney in which he rightly calls the book
'extraordinary'. I have long been aware of this book only by its being
cited by others, but I had not read it cover-to-cover until now, and I have
a few observations and questions.

This book was an easy and captivating read, and better than I expected. I
had previously avoided the book because of its seemingly dual authorship,
as I feared it would contain too many errors introduced by Lawton. In
particular, knowing how Clara and Paine wanted to protect a sanitized image
of MT, the friendship between Lawton and Clara raises alarm bells about the
overall truthfulness of the book.

Clara's hand presumably can be seen in Leary forgetting entirely Isabel
Lyon (not one mention). On the other hand, one page does mention the
Angelfish, which was also said to be a touchy subject for Clara.

_A Lifetime with Mark Twain_ narrates the life and travels of SLC and
family from approx 1870 to 1910, and I was impressed by how generally
accurate it was for this type of book. While Leary gets the chronology of
the 30-40 years that she discusses mostly right, the years themselves are
rarely stated, and sometimes I found myself wishing for them to be printed
in the margins as MTP has done for the autobiography.

Unless Leary exaggerated her involvement and you can set me straight, I
would recommend this book to modern day Twainians. There are so many
interesting people and events mentioned in the book (an index would have
been nice) that I will leave them for you to (re)discover yourself.

Among the most eye-opening passages concern the deaths of some Clemens
family members, as Leary was at the deaths of Susy, Livy, Jean and SLC
himself, and there is some risk that her descriptions may bring a tear to
your eye. I have read so many second- and third-hand reports of Susy's
death from the viewpoint of SLC, who was across the Atlantic at the time,
that it was shocking for me to have the perspective-changing experience of
reading about it from someone who was actually there.

Was it Kevin MacDonnell who once joked that we could comb the footage of
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee to try to find SLC? Leary was there and
gives directions as to where they sat.

Leary's memories are usually compelling enough not to be marred by the
folksy grammar and orthography that Lawton sometimes imposes, but I wonder
if the book would have been taken more seriously if its language had been
more standardized.

Also, Leary surely made some mistakes (e.g., SLC did not sail from
California in 1895 for his round-the-world trip), but her close perspective
on the family for so many years should be better appreciated. The NYT
reviews from 1925 (see Barb Schmidt's site) are perceptive and generally
correct, but are slightly dismissive, and imply that parts of Lawton's book
may have come from Paine rather than from Leary. Some of the NYT reviewer's
language also makes me wonder if he might have preferred if Leary's
memories had been presented instead by a man (such as Paine).

In a contest of devotion to the Clemens family, surely Leary gets the
prize--as suggested by the subtitle of the book--with Paine and Lyon as
runners-up (the former arguably being loyal to a fault, and the latter
still debated).

With growing interest in Clara's daughter Nina, it struck me as
irresponsible of Lawton/Leary to report that Clara had wished that Nina
(who was then 15 years old) had been a boy so that Nina could have been
more like SLC! It is ironic too when Leary speculates what creative
endeavour Nina might pursue (writer, piano, singer?) but entirely overlooks
acting, which Leary had noted at several points was a forte of SLC (and
which Nina would in fact end up doing).

Some questions:

Leary's narrative is headed 'First Part,' but it continues unbroken without
any further divisions. Is it missing a heading for 'Second Part'?

Is there an extant manuscript or typescript of this book?

Who was Mary Lawton? There seems not to be much info about Lawton except
that she was an actress friend of the Clemenses who remained close to Clara
after SLC died.

Did Paine ever say anything about this book or correspond with Lawton or
Leary?

So much of MT scholarship necessarily reinterprets the old info, and so if
you haven't read Leary's book, may I suggest it for a pleasant trip back in
time to what seems to have become an overlooked (semi-)primary resource. If
you can do so with the positive attitude that Xmas induced in me, the
question of authorship (Leary? Lawton?) becomes not as bothersome as it was
to the 1925 NYT reviewer, but rather an additional layer of challenge and
intrigue in itself--especially when adding the possible influence of Clara,
about which the NYT reviewer says nothing.

As Steve Courtney states about Leary's book, "its reappearance now is a
major event in broadening our knowledge of [SLC's] eventful and sometimes
tragic life." Might readers today be more receptive to the book than when
it first appeared?

Wishing you a great 2019,
Taylor Roberts