LITERATURE Scholar of Twain challenges views on women's roles

The college president says Twain's best work was influenced by women.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
The possibility at first seemed far-fetched: A Los Angeles collector, who had paid a dollar apiece for the stamps on 100 old envelopes in a downtown hobby shop, wondered if the letters inside might have been written by Mark Twain.
The man approached University of Southern California English professor Jay Martin, who in turn asked a graduate student, Laura Skandera, to look into it. Sure, she replied, but the letters were probably phony.
They weren't.
Written mainly to Twain's three daughters around the turn of the 20th century, the letters were funny, sharply observant and occasionally cantankerous, like the author himself. And for a young scholar who then knew little of Twain, they were irresistible.
The serendipitous role Skandera played in investigating and identifying one of the largest caches of Twain correspondence ever found would have a dramatic effect on the young woman and on the study of a towering literary figure.
Scholarly journey
It launched Skandera, then 26, on a scholarly journey far different from the one she had envisioned. She switched her focus from Wordsworth and other English Romantic poets to Twain, a writer whose style and subjects were profoundly American. Nearly two decades later, Laura Skandera Trombley, as she is known these days, is a noted Twain scholar and the president of Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.
Feminist, provocative and often controversial, her scholarship has challenged established views of Twain as a strong, almost iconic male archetype of American literature.
She argues that the author actually was deeply influenced by the women in his life and was largely dependent on their ideas and support to produce his best work.
Family members' roles
Much of her early research and writing centered on the roles of Twain's wife, Olivia, and other family members. More recently, Trombley has looked primarily at the influence of his longtime secretary, Isabel Lyon.
Many in the field consider the work groundbreaking.
"Her research has been absolutely enlightening," said Ann Ryan, associate professor of English at New York's Le Moyne College and president of the Mark Twain Circle of America, a national organization of academics specializing in the author. "She invites this larger rethinking of Twain that shifts it from the conventional reading ... to a much more complicated, more nuanced view.
"She's one of the most important scholars on Twain in recent years."
But Trombley's work, especially her first book, "Mark Twain in the Company of Women," also raised hackles in Twain circles. "Feminist fantasy," one reviewer wrote of the 1994 volume.
Shrugged off
In a recent interview, Trombley shrugged off the criticism. "You're dealing with Twain," she said simply. "People tend to be pretty invested in their views of him."
Now 45, she juggles leadership of the small liberal arts college with forays to Twain forums and research centers, and hours devoted to finishing up her third book on Twain.
The scholar's latest book project is "Mark Twain's Other Woman." The book, which is nearing completion, is a detailed look at Lyon, Twain's secretary for more than six years and his close companion after the 1904 death of his wife.
Lyon is a controversial figure in Twain circles. Some scholars believe she had a sexual relationship with Twain; others that she stole money from him. The Pitzer president disputes both views.
"They had an extraordinarily close relationship; he was utterly dependent on her and talked about everything with her, including sex and religion," Trombley says. "But I haven't seen anything that would indicate she was in a sexual relationship with him or that she embezzled from him."
In a place of honor in Trombley's Pitzer office, there is a large framed black-and-white photograph of Twain and Lyon, standing close together. A rare picture of the two, it was taken during a trip to Bermuda about 1907, Trombley says.