I've received this message from Robert Champ: > 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 am reluctant to accept any report from the Clemens household about Mark Twain's opinions, especially on so loaded a subject as sexual mores. We know that he loved his wife so much that he was willing to suffer her censorship in uncomfortable silence, even though her way of life was anathema to him. His own daughter suppressed her father's later writings until the 1960s, holding them a disgrace to the family and requiring vows of secrecy from scholars in exchange for permission to read them. The only source for Twain's sexual views is Twain himself. Point of information: Should not the date "1902" in your citation in fact be 1892, three years before the Queensberry accusation against Oscar Wilde? Vicki Richman Bedford, Brooklyn NY