Grace Donworth (July 22, 1857 – November 25, 1945) was an American writer and artist, based in Maine. Mark Twain promoted her "Jennie Allen" books to his audiences.[1]
Early life
Donworth was born on July 22, 1857, in Machias, Maine,[2] the daughter of Patrick Enright Donworth and Mary Eliza Baker Donworth.[3] Her father was a lumberman, and her four brothers became lawyers.[4] Her brother George Donworth was a judge in Washington state.[5] Her younger brother Albert B. Donworth was also a writer.[6][7] She graduated from Notre Dame Academy, with further art training in Boston.[3]
Donworth joined other women in Providence, Rhode Island, to assemble relief shipments to the victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; while there, she wrote humorous letters to a fellow aid worker, Miss Stockbridge, in the persona of an "unsophisticated and old fashioned"[10] seamstress. Those became her "Jennie Allen" stories. Stockbridge shared the letters with her brother and with a DAR meetings, and they eventually came to the attention of Mark Twain.[3]
Mark Twain enjoyed Donworth's "Jennie Allen" writings.[4] They were first presented to him as genuine correspondence,[11] but he soon knew they were Donworth's creation: "'Jennie's' letters are an innocent fraud, and a quite justifiable one, since they make pleasant reading and can harm no one," he wrote in a 1906 letter.[12][13] He helped her find a publisher, and promoted her works to his audiences.[3] In Everybody's Magazine, J. B. Kerfoot called The Letters of Jennie Allen "the best piece of homely fun of the year."[14]
