The Fies Files

From Volume 3 of the Autobiography of Mark Twain, today's subject: Lilian Aldrich, the wife of writer and Clemens acquaintance Thomas B...

Queen Anne's Mansions, 1905 See the previous post for context for this series of posts excerpting colorful insults from Mark Twain...

I'm reading the third volume of Mark Twain's autobiography, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone but am enjoying immensely. ...

Still reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2. It goes down best in bite-sized chunks. In earlier posts about both Volume 1 ...

My pal Raina Telgemeier (anyone I know who's spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list is automatically "my pal") r...

You know the problem with 21st Century culture? People who are famous for being famous. I singled out the Kardashians in this post's tit...

When last I mentioned Mark Twain, more than two years ago, I'd just finished Volume 1 of his autobiography. Having now begun Volume 2, i...

In keeping with my long-standing policy of not telling burglars that my home stands empty and waiting, I didn't want to blog about my la...

You're getting tired of these. I can tell. But I love them and it's my blog. Today's Twain target is Elisha P. Bliss Jr., who pu...

To recap, I am reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain (at a leisurely pace) and, from time to time, posting examples of Mr. Clemens's ...

Mr. Clemens and his family frequently traveled overseas and lived for two brief stretches in Florence, Italy. In 1904, in a futile attempt t...

In 1899, a London acquaintance named T. Douglas Murray asked Mr. Clemens to write the Introduction for an English translation of the trial r...

Today's insult is more of a back-handed compliment. While living briefly in Vienna, the Clemens family hired a maid who stuck her nose i...

Today's subject is a London book reviewer who, Mr. Clemens felt, prized proper grammar at the expense of clarity and style. I suppose we...

Today's subject is Clemens's attorney William Hamersly, who advised him poorly in several matters, including contracts with the afor...

As mentioned, I'm reading the massive first volume of the thrice-massiver Autobiography of Mark Twain, and about a hundred pages in find...