Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was one of the world’s most influential writers.
His books, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, continue to be studied in high school classrooms and university lecture halls all over the world.
But Mark Twain the man was a little bit… odd.
According to The Paris Review, the author developed a rather strange habit when he turned 70. The Tom Sawyer writer began “collecting” young, underage girls who he referred to as his “angelfish”.
He publicly defended the move, telling people who asked that he just longed for his own grandchildren. His daughters were grown up by then and his favourite daughter, Susy, had already passed away.
“As for me,” Twain wrote three years later. “I collect pets: young girls – girls from 10 to 16 years old; girls who are pretty and sweet and naive and innocent – dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy and to whom it has brought no wounds, no bitterness, and few tears.”
It all began when a 15-year-old girl named Gertrude Natkin saw Twain leaving Carnegie Hall on December 27, 1905, after a matinee performance. The teenager went up and spoke to the famous author and shook his hand. The next day she sent him a thank you letter.
“I am very glad I can go up and speak to you now… as I think we know each other,” she wrote. “I am the little girl who loves you.”
Twain replied, calling himself Gertrude’s “oldest and latest conquest”, and they continued to exchange flirty letters until Gertrude turned 16 and Twain turned his attention to younger girls.
Top Comments
This is a topic that has been repeatedly put under the microscope. In fact there is a book
out there somewhere on it. I have my doubts - the involvement of the mothers etc. Was he revisiting his happiest times with his daughters in Hartford?
There appears to be no question as to Clara's disapproval but what caught my eye was "She renamed the house Stormfield and stopped the angelfish from visiting." but I never heard or read of the property in Redding CT carrying any other moniker than Stormfield.
but [I am reaching] was their some consideration of Innocents at Home.?
Icky, icky poo. I can't believe that we still accept their bodies of work. If it doesn't fly today (Woody Allen, etc) why do we accept it from deceased authors?