“A Family Sketch” and Other Private Writings Twain Mark, Livy Clemens, and Susy Clemens. Benjamin Griffin, Editor. Oakland: University of California Press, 2014.

"A Family Sketch" and Other Private Writings Twain Mark, Livy Clemens, and Susy Clemens. Benjamin Griffin, Editor. Oakland: University of California Press, 2014.Benjamin Griffin, editor of the Mark Twain Project as well as editor of "A Family Sketch" and other Private Writings, brings more Twain writings to light for the first time in full in this work, deepening fascination with a man who already looms large in the history of American and popular literature. This book includes four writings by Twain himself: "A Family Sketch" (mainly composed in 1901-1902, 1906), a response to the loss of his daughter, Susy Clemens, who died in 1896 at the age of twenty-four from meningitis at her home in Hartford, Connecticut; "A True Story Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It" (1874), a tale and dialect narration of Mary Ann Cord, a cook for the Twain family in their summers at Elmira, New York; "A Record of the Small Foolishnesses of Susie and 'Bay' Clemens (Infants)," accumulated in 18761885; and finally, "At the Farm" (1884), which picks up from the early record and provides particulars about the youngest daughter, Jean ("Introduction" 2, 3, 5). The final two inclusions consist of a biography of her father written by Susy Clemens (1885) and "Quarry Farm Diary" (1884) by his wife Livy. Readers will gain insight into Twain's family, home life, servants, and the era itself. The book will delight those with only a popular acquaintance with Twain as well as Twain specialists, literary researchers, and historians ("Introduction" 10).As noted by Griffin, "A Family Sketch" began as a memorial for Susy but grew to become "an account of the entire household," including servants (2). Twain registers the characters of Clara (Bay) and Susy, describing Clara as "alert, enterprising, business-like, earthy, orderly, practical" (15). She is "not shrinking, not timid, and she had a liking for risky adventures" in contrast to Susy, who is "sensitive, shrinking; and in danger timid," reporting, "Susy was made of mind, Clara of matter" (15). In the record of the children's thoughts, Twain expresses setting down Susy's words "because they were wise, Clara's because they were robustly practical," and Jean's because they were "quaintly phrased" (16). Twain frames the lives of Susy and Clara with an account of servants, particularly George in a long passage, then reports, "Susy passed to her rest the year before George died" (28). Following a brief composition of Clara's entitled "The barn," Twain describes Susy as having "a forceful imagination" and becoming progressively "a wise and thoughtful small philosopher" (35).In "Mark Twain by Susy Clemens," Susy connects several pieces of the family's life. She explains the "Bufalo" home was a marriage present to her parents from Grandpapa Langdon, "a great and good man" idolized by her mamma, who died six months after the marriage (110). A few months after his death, Susy writes that her brother Langdon was born "about a year before her"; she describes him as "a beautiful little boy" whose "delicate health was a constant anxiety for mamma" (111). Langdon's health began to fail while he was in the Elmira summer home, and he died of diphtheria a week after her mamma joined her papa in Hartford (119). Susy reveals that her "mamma and papa couldn't stay in their house in Bufalo because it reminded so much of Grandpapa" (111). Susy continues to build a total picture, writing that Langdon, still a baby (only nineteen months old), was buried with his Grandpa at Elmira, NY and "After that mamma became very ill, so ill there seemed great danger of death" (120). These pieces help to explain why "A Family Sketch" and "A Record of the Small Foolishnesses" characterize the three girls, clearly showing the parents doted on Susy, coming after Langdon's death and as some consolation for grief; Clara, following another two years later, and Jean (Jane), six years after Clara. Susy begins her papa's biography, "We are a very happy family! …