Bewilderment often follows when one learns that Mark Twain's best friend of forty years was a minister. That Joseph Hopkins Twichell (1838-1918) was also a New Englander with Puritan roots only entrenches the ""odd couple"" image of Twain and Twichell. This biography adds various dimensions to our understanding of the Twichell-Twain relationship.

STEVE COURTNEY, an independent scholar, has worked for more than three decades as a journalist and has had several positions at the Hartford Courant. He is a coeditor of The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell (Georgia).