Alice's mother was niece to Mark Twain, and her father was Twain's business manager and subsequently publisher of many of his books by Charles L. Webster and Company, founded in 1884. Initially the business was successful, and when Alice was five the family moved to a large brownstone in New York, with a summer house on Long Island. However, the publishing company ran into difficulties, and increasingly the relationship with Mark Twain deteriorated. In 1888, her father had a breakdown and took a leave of absence, and the family moved back to Fredonia. He subsequently committed suicide in 1891 from a drug overdose.