The Elliott Bay Book Company

A southern California native who is very much in place there today as president of Pitzer College in Claremont, Laura Skandera Trombley is one of the most highly regarded scholars with regard to the life and work of Mark Twain. Her third book on Samuel Clemens as subject matter is Mark Twain's Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years (Knopf). "This book is a revelation. Thanks to hitherto unpublished letters and diaries of a witness who was snubbed and excluded in previous works, we now have a first-rate account of Mark Twain's last decade. This account gives us a candid look at the crosscurrents of wit, charm, and irrational angers that marked and marred the great man's final years. Trombley's discoveries make for an illuminating portrait and essential reading." - Meryle Secrest. "A riveting tale of the vortex of ambition, desire, jealousy, and obsession swirling round one Great Man." - Emma Donoghue. Another subject of Laura Skandera Trombley's work has been the writing of Maxine Hong Kingston.