In _Mark Twain and John Bull_ Howard Baetzhold writes:

"Had circumstances been different, Clemens might also have wished to see
Oscar Wilde, a long-time resident of Tite Street.  He had met the colorful
aesthete at Bad Nauheim in 1902 and, according to his daughter's memory of
the occasion, had enjoyed a spirited conversation.  Clara also recalled
that although her father had not introduced Wilde to the family, she and her
sisters were chamred by the author's brilliant smile and intrigued by his
colored and shoes and his carnation "as large as a baby sunflower."  But
now Wilde was in Reading Gaol, having served almost half of the two-
year sentence that followed his sensational trial in 1895, and very likely
both Clemens and Livy agreed with their housekeeper Katy Leary's
judgment that `he was a very bad man, Oscar Wilde was, so bad you couldn't
talked about what he had done.'"

Baetzhold's source for the Katy Leary quote is _A Lifetime with Mark Twain_
by Mary Lawton (New York, 1925), a book I have been unable to locate.  I
would imagine though that Mrs. Leary's opinion was actually a reflection
of a Twain fiat rather than a comment that that MT and Livy would have
simply agreed to.

I wonder if we are not stretching the idea of Twain's libertarian views on
sex a little far.  After all, when Twain himself had the opportunity to
write about someone who really could be considered a sexual libertarian,
Shelley, he pilloried him ("A Defense of Harriet Shelley), and he castigates
the English nobility in _A Connecticut Yankee_ for their loose sexual
conduct.  Twain also seems to have lived a life of absolute devotion to his
own wife.  Apart from his own private musings about the anamoly of sexual
desire (who has not mused as much) and some obscene speeches delivered in
private clubs, Twain was, in this as in every area of his life, essentially
an honorable man.

I imagine that list members already know of the new book about Twain and
gender; it does a regular dance around Twain's ideas of masculinity.  Very
trendy stuff but not very convincing.

Bob Champ