Literary figure. He was a good friend of Mark Twain, whom he met and befriended on the 1867 cruise of the Quaker City. Twain had been sent on it as a reporter for the Alta California to write articles about his experiences, and these articles were later compiled and expanded upon to make the book Innocents Abroad. It became Twain's first best-seller and enhanced his fame as an author. Jackson was the ship's surgeon, a doctor who practiced in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Being one of Twain's good friends on the story, Jackson became a character mentioned throughout and immortalized in Innocents Abroad. They were said to have similar senses of humor and a common view of the cruise and its passengers (a not very positive one). On this historic cruise, which is said to have been the first trans-Atlantic American pleasure cruise, Twain and Jackson both befriended a reporter named Julia Newell. She, like Twain, had been sent by a newspaper to write articles on her cruise experience. It is said that she and Twain used to dance together on deck, but she became even closer to Dr. Jackson. Jackson's first wife Harriet Hollinshead, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, died less than two years later in January 1869 of a lingering illness. In 1870 Jackson moved to Chicago with his two surviving children and became reacquainted with Ms. Newell. They married the following year and lived in Chicago while keeping ties to Julia's hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. They had two daughters, Marguerite Jackson, who died as a newborn in 1873, and LaVinnia. A gynecological surgeon, Jackson became the first president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. Innocents Abroad, while not his most famous book today, consistently sold the most copies throughout Twain's lifetime. It seems many of Twain's readers wondered exactly who the famous "Doctor" (as he was referred to in the book) really was. Apparently guesses ran rampant, and there were many different people thought to be the actual "Doctor". In 1901 Twain was asked to settle the question, and he responded with the following about Jackson: "It is true, as you say, that Doctor is multiplying from year to year. I have six of him on my list already. I do not remember the one which you enclose. The real one was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago, whose too early death I still lament. Very truly yours, S. L. CLEMENS."