Unpublished Twain family sketch set for NY auction
04/21/10

By ULA ILNYTZKY (AP)

NEW YORK - Mark Twain, known for his curmudgeonly wit and storytelling, is shown as a family man and loving father in "A Family Sketch," a never published tribute to a daughter who inspired two of his stories and died at 24 after contracting spinal meningitis.

"She was a magazine of feelings, & they were of all kinds & of all shades of force," he wrote of Olivia "Susy" Clemens shortly after her death in 1896.

"In all things she was intense: in her this characteristic was not a mere glow, dispensing warmth, but a consuming fire," he said of the daughter who was the inspiration for his "Joan of Arc" and "A Horse's Tale."

The 64-page, handwritten document is among a trove of 200 personal letters, manuscripts and photographs of Mark Twain - the pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens - going on sale June 17 at Sotheby's New York.

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