Gravity Selections from the letters of Olivia Langdon Clemens.

摘要

Olivia Louise Langdon became engaged to Samuel Langhorne Clemens on February 4, 1869. While countless volumes of scholarly historical, critical, interpretive, biographical, and autobiographical writings have examined the life, literature, manuscripts, letters, and notebooks of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, less interest has been expended in his wife's behalf. This dissertation seeks to further our understanding of the life and thought of Olivia Langdon Clemens. Gravity draws on a letter collection recently type-scripted by graduate students at the University of California Berkeley for the Mark Twain Project. Following an Introduction surveying much of the existing scholarly literature devoted to Olivia Langdon Clemens, twelve chapters present Olivia's life---based on the content of the letter collection---largely in her own words. Olivia's letters span the years 1864 to 1898 and are written to her mother, Olivia Lewis Langdon; her sister, Susan Langdon Crane; her brother, Charles Langdon; her extended family members; her friends---Alice Hooker Day, Grace King, and Harriet Whitmore; and her husband. Her letters affirm, clarify, and deepen what we already know of Olivia Louise Langdon Clemens. Olivia reveals her love for home and family. She intervenes to correct her quick-tempered husband and monitors his writing and lectures. She is a devoted mother. She enjoys enduring female friendships. She travels. She is a good woman, a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother---a good Victorian woman. She is a business woman, property owner, and architect. She enjoys material possessions. She struggles with her faith; she fears sickness and death. She grieves the loss of her father, her son, her mother, and her daughter. She faces despair as the specter of bankruptcy overtakes her family. Olivia's letters offer fresh insight into the breadth of her own nature and into her relationship with her world-famous husband.