author

Berton L. (Berton Lewis) Maxfield

1873–1937

Known for helping preserve Philippine folklore in English, this early 20th-century writer and lawyer contributed stories that brought Visayan traditions to a wider audience. His surviving body of work is small, but it connects legal writing with an interest in folk narrative and cultural recordkeeping.

1 Audiobook

Philippine Folk-Tales

Philippine Folk-Tales

by Clara Kern Bayliss, Laura Estelle Watson Benedict, Fletcher Gardner, Berton L. (Berton Lewis) Maxfield, W. H. Millington

About the author

Born in 1873 and dying in 1937, Berton Lewis Maxfield is chiefly remembered today for his part in Philippine Folk-Tales, a collection circulated through Project Gutenberg and other library catalogs. In that volume, he is credited with the section on Visayan folk tales, written with W. H. Millington.

Catalog and reference records also link him to The Law of Landlord and Tenant, suggesting that he worked as a legal writer as well as a collector or reteller of folklore. Taken together, those records point to a career that moved between practical legal subjects and the preservation of traditional storytelling.

Detailed biographical information about his personal life and career is limited in the sources I could confirm. What stands out most clearly is his role in carrying oral tales into print, helping keep a part of Philippine folk tradition available to later readers.