Born in Virginia and raised as a Methodist, Moncure Daniel Conway graduated from Dickinson College at age seventeen, and served for a time as a Methodist preacher. He soon rejected Methodism, however, and entered Harvard Divinity School, becoming pastor of the Unitarian Church in Washington upon graduation. Dismissed because of his antislavery views, he served as a pastor in Cincinnati, contributed to several periodicals, and lectured widely. After traveling to England in 1863 to lecture for the Northern cause, he accepted the pastorate of a London Unitarian chapel. Conway continued to write for various magazines and newspapers, building an international reputation as a writer and speaker on religious, supernatural and historical topics. He met SLC in London in 1872; thereafter he was host and guide to SLC and his family in England and France on several occasions over many years. Conway also acted as Mark Twain’s literary agent in Britain through 1881. He recalled his friendship with SLC in his Autobiography, Memories, and Experiences (1904).