Adeline Trafton

Born in 1845, Adeline Trafton was an American author and journalist whose work reached readers through novels, essays, and travel writing. Reliable library and public-domain sources identify her with the name Adeline Trafton, and also with the married name Adeline Trafton Knox.

She is remembered for books including An American Girl Abroad and Katherine Earle. Biographical material preserved in Woman of the Century describes her as a writer connected with Portland, Oregon, and part of the lively world of 19th-century American letters.

Today, her reputation rests on the range of her writing and on the glimpse it gives into literary life in her era. Though not as widely known now as some of her contemporaries, her surviving books show a writer interested in both storytelling and the wider world.