4 ms·
his bad investments and obsession here was certainly something that brought him down, but I'm going to have to say what probably really ruined his life was his
by bryanrasmussen 2mo ago
his bad investments and obsession here was certainly something that brought him down, but I'm going to have to say what probably really ruined his life was his daughter Susy Clemens dying of spinal meningitis in 1896, 2 years after the bankruptcy.
As someone with some familiarity with Clemens, and stresses piled upon stresses, I feel it is somewhat insulting to the man to think he just couldn't handle losing some money and having his entrepreneurial dreams not work out, because really that is some minor stuff right there, and in the end he was still one of the most popular writers in the world, it was going through the stress and then getting more on top. Especially, as it is my experience, when you are going through something really difficult and are at your weakest, people try to take advantage of that. It would not have been a good therapy for his misanthropic bent.
- pikminguy 2mo agoTHIS! Clemens was financially troubled more than once in his life due to bad investments but that wasn't what broke him. We're talking about a man who outlived 3/4 of his children and the wife he adored!
- chaostheory 2mo agoDidn’t he blame himself for her death because it supposedly happened because he had to go on the road again in order to pay for his debts?
- bryanrasmussen 2mo agoI don't know, probably. This kind of thing all goes together and you tend to become very bitter towards people.
- kungfooey 2mo agoYes, he was in Europe at the time. Chernow's biography of Clemens, while ridiculously long (audiobook was > 40 hours) was also very good and spent quite a bit of time on this. I do suspect financial losses were a big contributor -- but part of it wasn't just that he lost _his_ money, but also his wife's inheritance. Of course, even aside from this money-losing invention, they were quite the profligate spenders.