The bygone Bermuda of 1907 has returned to life in the pages of a new work of historical fiction, Twain’s End, by the United States author Lynn Cullen.

The novel imagines the romantic life between celebrated American scribe Mark Twain and Isabel Lyon, his secretary, drawing on Twain’s writings and letters as well as Lyon’s diary.

A keen traveller, Twain first came to the Island in 1867 and returned several times thereafter — lingering for months at a time up until his death in 1910.

Making eight trips here, Twain once famously quipped: “You can go to heaven if you want. I’d rather stay right here in Bermuda.”

Thus, readers of Ms Cullen’s latest book are taken to The Princess Hotel of January 1907, in a Bermuda of horse-drawn transportation on roads of crushed limestone, in which many of the businesses lining Front Street are wooden.

Twain reminisces how the Island recalls his birthplace of Florida, Missouri. The chapter closes with a trip to Devil’s Hole, where the author exhorts locals in the shade of a cedar tree to “never, ever regret anything that makes you smile”.

Out this month from Gallery Books, an imprint of publishers Simon and Schuster, the novel is available at the Bermuda Book Store on Queen Street.