In the various replies defending Mark Twain against the charge of pedophilia I didn't notice any references to the single best rebuttal that has thus far appeared in print, John Cooley's MARK TWAIN'S AQUARIUM: THE SAMUEL CLEMENS ANGELFISH CORRESPONDENCE 1905-1910 (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1991). On page 283 of that book, for example, Cooley calmly explains: "The Aquarium gave Clemens great pleasure during a period that was otherwise filled with bitterness and unhappiness; there is no evidence to suggest real impropriety or scandal in connection with any of the angelfish. Perhaps his greatest crime was stereotyping and idealizing the lives of these young women." In another passage, Cooley writes: "Clemens was probably in love with his memory of himself as a boy or young man. . . . His angelfish behavior was certainly unusual, even obsessive, but it was also the final expression of a lifelong love affair with his teenage years" (p. 282). Cooley's book makes a quiet but persuasive case against the views that MARK TWAIN: GOD'S FOOL (1975) encouraged, and to me his MARK TWAIN'S AQUARIUM is the more convincing perspective. Alan Gribben Auburn University at Montgomery [log in to unmask] At 05:32 PM 1/5/98 -0500, you wrote: >I recently met a woman who claimed that it is a little known fact that Mark Twain was a pedophile in the last few years of his life. She claimed that there is solid evidence of such activity with one of his nieces and perhaps some other young girls. I found this hard to believe, but do not know enough about his later years to contradict her. Has anybody heard these allegations before and is there any truth to them? Also, if these allegations have been aired, what evidence was she referring to? >