Appleton Morgan

Born in Portland, Maine, in 1845, Appleton Morgan—also known as James Appleton Morgan—built a career as both a lawyer and a writer. Surviving library and public-domain records connect him with legal writing, essays on interstate commerce and railways, and a long list of published works that stayed in circulation well after his lifetime.

His early books included Macaronic Poetry (1872) and The Law of Literature (1875), a substantial study of copyright, libel, and related literary law. He also prepared legal editions such as An English Version of Legal Maxims and a version of Addison's A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, showing how comfortably he worked as both author and editor.

Morgan is also remembered as a Shakespeare enthusiast and scholar. Public records describe him as president of the Shakespeare Society of New York, and modern library catalogs still list works such as The Shakespearean Myth and A History of the Family of Morgan. He died in 1928, leaving behind a body of writing that blends legal knowledge with broad literary curiosity.