Edward Winsor Kemble (1861-1933) was working for the New York Daily Graphic and contributing to the newly-launched Life magazine when Mark Twain happened to see his drawing of a small boy being stung by a bee. He bore such a striking resemblance to the Huckleberry Finn in Twain's mind's eye that Kemble, at the age of just 23, was commissioned to illustrate the whole novel, a much-anticipated follow-up to Twain's already celebrated "Tom Sawyer".
…………"Huckleberry Finn" was filmed a few years ago, and the director, the lamented William Desmond Taylor, who was mysteriously murdered in Hollywood soon after the picture was released, took a copy of the original edition and made his characters fit my drawings. I had not seen the book in years, and as my characters appeared on the screen, resembling my types so faithfully, even as to pose, my mind ran back to the lanky boy who posed for me and the pride I had felt in doing my first book." E W Kemble, The Colophon 1930
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