Featuring: George Griffin: Meeting Mark Twain’s Butler Face-To-Face by Kevin Mac Donnell

The Mark Twain Journal is a twice-yearly periodical devoted to the life and works of the American author Mark Twain, drawing where possible on contemporary sources. The journal also explores his family and social relationships as well as his literary and intellectual connections.

Volume 62, Number 1 features Kevin MacDonnell's biographical sketch George Griffin: Meeting Mark Twain's Butler Face-To-Face, which provides the most comprehensive look into Griffin’s life to date, and brings us face to face with the man who is said to have inspired Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. George Griffin came to wash the windows in Mark Twain’s house and stayed for seventeen years, taking on the position of butler, the highest-ranking employee in the household. One hundred and fifty years later this member of the Hartford African American community remains an integral part of the history of the Mark Twain House and the Hartford community.

Preordered copies will ship out after the Trouble Begins lecture The Life and Legacy of George Griffin taking place on May 14, 2024. Orders may also be picked up at the event itself.