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