... provides a remarkable account of how the dying novelist's final months were overshadowed by personal upheavals.

"It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him," says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other Woman.

"There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile."

Twain, who was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, had made several attempts to start work on autobiography, beginning in 1870, but only really hit his stride with the work in 1906, when he appointed a stenographer to transcribe his dictated reminiscences.

The "good news" of private sector jobs is well short of the number needed to keep up with population growth.

And it will get worse in other ways, as the economy and the awful Dem governor soon to step down are ensuring, say the polls, that we will elect a Repub governor this fall.

And inspired...Para mi amor.

Mi Tesoro...
I can see your hips sway beyond the horizon
Your smile warm and shining is my rising sun
I long to kiss your lips as softly as these gentle waves kiss the sand.