Mark Twain's Other Woman

by Laura Skandera Trombley

  The daughter of the aristocratic Georgiana Van Kleek and Columbia University professor Charles Harrison Lyon, Sr., rarely ventured out, keeping in touch solely with her younger sister’s family in Connecticut and a small circle of intimates. The only time she opened her life to outsiders was when select people interested in talking about Mark Twain, her life’s passion, contacted her. During her last decade, she declined frequent requests for interviews and agreed to speak with only a few individuals about her time with Twain. There was a curious covert aspect to these meetings, which Isabel used to her advantage. The people with whom she met included Samuel and Doris Webster, of New Milford, Connecticut, coauthors with Isabel of an unpublished transcription of her memoirs; Dixon Wecter, the literary editor of the Mark Twain Papers, who arranged for her memoirs to be housed with the permanent Mark Twain Collection at the University of California at Berkeley; and the actor Hal Holbrook, the creator of a famed stage impersonation and tribute to Mark Twain. In her meetings with these key individuals—the writers, the archivist, and the impersonator—Isabel had a specific purpose in mind.

  Although flattered by the attention her visitors paid her, Isabel was very particular that certain conditions be met before appointments could occur. All meetings would take place in her apartment and were required to remain secret, and all conversations would be confidential. No details about her life with Mark Twain or any quotations from her were ever to be released to the public. If she warmed to her visitor, Isabel would begin sorting through her memories, repeating snippets of conversations held over half a century before, speaking about the most important relationship of her life. Understandably, she preferred to remember the happy times, yet a steady undercurrent of her dialogue was her trying to explain—perhaps more for herself than for her listener—why everything had fallen apart at the end. Until the day she died, Isabel never stopped trying to fathom how after all her love, dedication, and loyalty, she had come to live as a biographical exile in a basement apartment in Manhattan, defending herself to strangers. With her cat Christopher purring in her lap, she would lead guests back to the beginning, to the day she walked into Mark Twain’s life. Isabel, understandably, felt violated by the way Twain, Clara, and Paine had treated her, and she recognized the Websters, Wector, and Holbrook as kindred spirits.

  Isabel Van Kleek Lyon in later years in her apartment at 7 Charles Street, in Greenwich Village, New York City, 1950s

  What brought Isabel together with Samuel and Doris Webster was the publication of Samuel’s book Mark Twain, Business Man (1946). In it, he defends his father, Charles Webster—Twain’s nephew, and former general business manager and head of his publishing company—from charges of mismanagement, and he does a thorough job of documenting Twain’s own responsibility for many of the company’s problems. Twain had removed Webster from the publishing company in early 1888, claiming he was incompetent, even though just two years earlier Webster had published Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which sold more copies in less time than any book to date. By the end of 1888, a humiliated Charles Webster died a broken man, just thirty-nine years old.

  Both Isabel and Charles Webster, at different times, had been close to Twain, and each had suffered tremendously as a result of his vindictiveness. Isabel was determined that she would not be forgotten, and she joined with the Websters in composing a manuscript drawn from her personal writings with hopes of eventually publishing it. In preparation for the transcribing that Doris would do of her papers, Isabel had severely edited her daily reminders and diary and in some cases ripped out entire pages. A great many of her expressions of affection about Twain were omitted and only oblique references to Wark remained. In most instances, she used a pencil to cross out writing made in pen. At some point over the years, Isabel had made an edited, handwritten copy of her 1906 daily reminder, leaving no explanation as to why; however, there is one intriguing clue. In an undated, handwritten note, Doris Webster recounts Isabel’s telling her that during the final years of her time with Twain she feared that her diaries might be stolen. She probably thought that Clara would attempt to destroy them and had made a dummy copy for her to find. Isabel told Doris that she had decided to hide her diary and daily reminders “inside a voluminous dress that hung inside out in her closet.” Both the original 1906 daily reminder and the edited copy are housed with the Mark Twain Papers. It may have been during this period that Isabel dispensed with the bulk of her 1909 journal, thinking that the contents were too sensational to be published or believed.

  Doris and Samuel spent three years transcribing Isabel’s diary and daily reminders. The transcription begins on January 17, 1904, and ends abruptly, on December 30, 1908, with this observation by Isabel about Twain: “Oh, but he is lovable & naughty & good.” There are no accompanying notes to the transcriptions and no context for the quoted portions. It appears, based on inspection of handwriting on the typescript, that the Websters shared their transcription with Isabel, who proceeded to edit it further. When Isabel’s original materials are compared with the Webster manuscript, wherever Isabel crossed out a section in the original, it is omitted from the typescript; therefore, Isabel edited the materials twice, both in the original and in the typescript. In addition to saving bits and pieces of notes from various conversations, Doris also transcribed three lengthy interviews she had with Isabel—on March 5, 1948; January 5, 1950; and May 17, 1953—which were not included in the transcription manuscript.

  Dixon Wecter learned about the Websters’ friendship with Isabel and he subsequently visited her. In consideration of Clara’s sensitivity when it came to Isabel, Wecter contacted Isabel surreptitiously; had Clara discovered the visit, the Twain Papers might have gone to another archive. After Wecter’s death, Henry Nash Smith and Frederick Anderson also visited Isabel, and in a letter dated October 18, 1954, Isabel informed Smith that the probable source for a number of Twain items that had recently come up for sale was Albert Bigelow Paine. Forty-five years after the scandal, Isabel was still defending her honor.

  In November 1955, Isabel turned over all of her personal writings and photographs to the Websters in the hope that they would produce a publishable work, thus reinstating her into the record of Twain’s life. The Websters accepted the collection with the understanding that Isabel’s memoirs would be included as a permanent part of the Mark Twain Papers. By housing her papers in the same archive as Twain’s, Isabel assured scholarly security for herself. Henry Nash Smith acknowledged the gift, reassuring the Websters that Isabel’s papers would be kept “in a locked room that houses the Mark Twain Papers (although of course kept separate from the papers belonging to the Estate; and I think they will be quite safe, while they are in our custody).” Doris wrote Smith that Isabel had volunteered to name Samuel Webster as a coauthor, “because of the unfortunate ending of the association, due to the wretched newspaper stories, she has been deeply hurt all her life and wants no publicity. But since she has known Sam it seems to make a great difference to her and if her name and Sam’s were combined she would not feel alone and vulnerable.” Isabel may have reasoned that using Samuel’s name might offer her protection against Clara’s fury.

  In response to Smith’s inquiry, Doris and Sam stoutly defended Isabel’s honor:

  We are certain that there was no scandal whatever in the M.T.-IVL relationship. In connection with her diary, Isabel once said wistfully “Do you think I rave too much about him? I was not in love with him. He was an old man to me.” We suggested that perhaps he was in love with her, and she said very simply “No, he was not. There was only one woman in his life, and that was Mrs. Clemens.”

  Yet, despite all of Isabel’s attempts to fly under Clara’s radar, they continued to be linked together. In the February 9, 1957, issue of The New Yorker, embedded in an essay by Geoffrey T. Hellman entitled “Literary Estate,” is an odd reference to both women. In the course of mentioning the sexual content Letters from the Earth, Hellman made an unwitting reference about Isabel: “Mark T
wain’s widow wouldn’t allow the book to be published, and his daughter, Mrs. Jacques Samossoud, hasn’t as yet allowed it to be published. Bernard DeVoto let me read it when he was literary executor of the Mark Twain estate.”

  Hal Holbrook first contacted Isabel in 1958, when he was performing Twain in a nearby Greenwich Village nightclub. He had been developing his impression for several years, having given his first performance in 1954. In 1957 he performed Mark Twain Tonight as the season opener for the Valley Players, a summer stock company. While Isabel was certainly “a lovely, genuine person,” Holbrook had a clear motive in meeting with the elderly woman: by this time, she was one of the last people who had been in close contact with Mark Twain and could describe his intonations and mannerisms. Holbrook became a frequent visitor, and he remembers Isabel as “independent in a rather exciting way. She was somebody special.” Their meetings greatly affected him and profoundly influenced his portrayal of Mark Twain. When the two met in her apartment, before Isabel would start talking to Holbrook about Twain, she would pack with tobacco a small meerschaum pipe (the one Twain had given her), pour herself a stiff Scotch (the same kind of liquor she drank with Twain), and prop up the seat cushion on her favorite chair as a backrest so her feet could touch the floor.

  Holbrook was placed “in the peculiar position of not being able to record these conversations, despite the fact that nothing but the most charming stories and fine insight into Mark Twain has resulted from them. She is a wonderful recluse, intent on maintaining her privacy, and I was allowed to see her only on the understanding that I would ‘never publish’ what she told me.” Over the years, she had “consistently refused to see or speak to newspaper reporters and writers,” and Holbrook acknowledged how fortunate he was to have had several audiences with her: “It is only by the luckiest stroke that she has agreed to speak to me. So I have to honor her wishes.” Isabel saw Holbrook perform Mark Twain Tonight just once, on a freezing cold evening in the summer of 1958, in Nyack, New York.

  After years of declining health, on December 3, 1958, Isabel suffered a heart attack. That afternoon the apartment building janitor entered her tiny apartment using a passkey when she did not respond to his knocking. She was found in a coma and taken by ambulance to St. Vincent’s Hospital. The next day, at 4:53 p.m., just eleven days shy of turning ninety-five, Isabel died. She was buried in the Lyon family plot in Farmington, Connecticut, where her plain, granite headstone reads:

  Isabel V. Lyon

  Dec. 15, 1863

  Dec. 4, 1958

  After learning of her death, Hal Holbrook sent a condolence note to Isabel’s grandnephew, David Moore:

  She was a lovely, genuine person and I have so much respect for her. I admired her very much. I have talked with many people who knew Mr. Clemens, but none of them knew him as she did nor had her deep understanding of him. She impressed me very strongly, and the image of Mark Twain which she gave to me is the strongest one I have and, I believe, the truest one.

  In a second letter to Mr. Moore, Holbrook mentioned that he had visited with the Websters and that they had spoken quite a bit about Isabel: “I wish so much that I had seen more of her. She had a better understanding of Mr. Clemens than anyone I know.” In 2001, Holbrook recalled Isabel’s insistence that Twain be remembered as “a very serious minded man. A man who felt deeply about the world around him and the people in it, an extremely sensitive man, and that his sense of humor came out of this well of seriousness. … That was the most important message I carried away from my meeting with Ms. Lyon and I have tried to honor this in my presentation of him on the platform.” Holbrook wrote that Isabel had “left behind some unpublished things, pictures and memorabilia, including a diary of seven years with him which will one day be published, I pray. Her will stipulated that it could not be published until after Clara’s death.”

  In 1959, just a few months after Isabel’s death, Holbrook opened Mark Twain Tonight at a tiny off-Broadway theater. His performance met with stunning success. That same year he was awarded a special Obie for his Isabel-inspired rendition of Twain. After fifty-six years of performing his one-man show, Holbrook has played the role longer than his subject lived it.

  On July 28, 1960, more than a year and a half after Isabel’s death, Henry Nash Smith sent the Websters a letter acknowledging receipt of their “typescript of Isabel Lyon’s diary.” He concurred with them that the 349-page manuscript could not be published while Clara was alive: “I believe it will make a book, and I will be delight[ed] to do anything in connection with the publication that I can.” Smith commented that Isabel appeared to be remarkably “free of malice and pettiness, and the diaries, documents that simply could not have been faked, are the evidence.”

  Smith was correct about Clara, who had continued her surveillance even after Isabel was gone. Immediately upon receiving Smith’s letter, the Websters wrote him to say that a close friend of Clara’s, Caroline Harnsberger, the author of several books about Twain, had recently paid them a visit, wanting to know the location of Isabel’s diaries. Harnsberger told them that she “wanted to ‘clear Isabel’s name.’ We told her that that was the 1st thing Isabel would have wanted.” Later the Websters found out that Clara suspected the Websters were in possession of Isabel’s diaries and had sent Harnsberger to confirm it. Doris described the mysterious visit: “All very cloak and dagger.”

  Approximately one month later, the Websters transferred the bulk of Isabel’s collection of primary materials to the University of California, where the Mark Twain Papers are housed. Some of Isabel’s original materials were given to Vassar College during the late 1960s by a Webster family relative, despite her express wish that all of her materials be transferred to “The Mark Twain section of the University of California.” Samuel Webster passed away on March 24, 1962. Doris Webster died five years later, on July 9, 1967. Frederick Anderson, editor of the papers at the time of Doris’s death, did not view Isabel’s writings with much regard: “It is very difficult to take Miss Lyon’s fatuous enthusiasms, expressions of affection, & awe seriously.” If the Webster manuscript was ever to be prepared for publication, Anderson opined, it would have to be severely edited.

  Doris Webster left a large bequest—several hundred thousand dollars—to the Mark Twain Papers. None of her bequest was used to prepare the Webster manuscript for publication; instead, Frederick Anderson used her gift to support other editorial work. In 1977 there was a brief expression of interest in publishing a coffee-table version of the Webster manuscript with many accompanying photographs; however, the individual proposing the project, John Seelye, was uninterested in Isabel’s story:

  Yes I’m sure that much of the … diary stuff is not worth printing. But the pictures are, as you realize. … Certainly the world is not waiting for the diaries. But if we were to work up a book that balanced selected parts of the diaries with a full range of her photographic work, that might both please the family and the general public.

  The proposal came to naught, and the Webster transcription and Isabel’s photographs still sit in boxes at the Mark Twain Papers, largely unpublished.

  A Twain manuscript that also seemed destined never to see the light of day was suddenly granted a reprieve by Clara. For decades, Clara had refused permission for DeVoto’s edited version of Letters from the Earth to be published. Suddenly, in November 1960, she changed her mind. The New York Times ran an extensive article about the excitement the publication was generating:

  A series of highly inflammatory anti-religious essays written by Mark Twain in his later years will be made public for the first time on Sept. 21 [1962]. Withheld by the humorist’s daughter since 1939, when they were edited by the late Bernard DeVoto, the essays will be published by Harper & Row. The pieces, humorous in style but venomous in viewpoint, have been collected in a volume entitled “Letters from the Earth.” It was learned yesterday that Mark Twain’s 88 year-old daughter, Mrs. Clara Clemens Samossoud, who is an invalid and lives in Mission Beach,
Calif., recently agreed to publication on the grounds that “Mark Twain belonged to the world” and that public opinion had become more tolerant. It was understood that another factor leading to Mrs. Samossoud’s change of mind was her annoyance by Soviet charges that some of her father’s ideas were being suppressed in the United States. … Mr. DeVoto assumed the editing job after the death in 1937 of Twain’s biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine. Harper & Brothers recommended to the estate’s trustees that Mr. DeVoto, who was the author of “Mark Twain’s America,” be asked to prepare for publication material from Twain’s unpublished writings. In March 1939, when the edited manuscript was ready for the printer, Mrs. Samossoud objected to parts of it on the ground that they presented a “distorted view” of her father’s ideas and attitudes. The project was dropped. Mrs. Samossoud’s recent change of heart was partly influenced by Charles Neider, who edited “Autobiography of Mark Twain” for Harper & Brothers in 1959. … “I wrote Mrs. Samossoud on several occasions.” … “I explained that the public was mature enough to make up its own mind what was in its interest. I felt, too, that Mark Twain should be taken in the round as it were, and that we should not exclude parts of his work because they may not be fashionable.” It was about that time—Nov. 30, 1960—that the 125th anniversary of Twain’s birth was being widely celebrated. Mr. Neider said that Mrs. Samossoud informed him that she had searched her conscience and decided to step aside. “It was a great change and I was rather startled,” Mr. Neider recalled. He immediately got in touch with Harper, who decided to go ahead with the manuscript edited by Mr. DeVoto.