Existing comment:
Olivia Langdon Clemens, October 29, 1869
Twain first set eyes on Livy (Olivia) through a photo pendant that Charles Langdon, her brother, had in his Quaker City stateroom. Lovestruck, Twain proposed to her mere weeks after returning from the Holy Land excursion. Two years and some two hundred courtship letters later, she finally agreed to marry him. Of her influence on his works, Twain had this to say: "I never wrote a serious word until after I married Mrs. Clemens. She is solely responsible -- to her should go the credit -- for any influence my subsequent work should exert. After my marriage, she edited everything I wrote." |