Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Mary Hartwell Catherwood (Ohio, 1847-Chicago,1902) was a successful writer of historical romances, publishing both novels and short stories in periodicals such as Lippincott's Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and the Atlantic Monthly. Due to Catherwood's husband's business, she traveled and lived throughout the Midwest and developed her signature style of incorporating Midwestern culture, dialect, and local color into her texts. Although most of her novels and stories are set in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, some are also based along the American border with French Canada and on colonial Mackinac Island.