author

Berton L. Maxfield

Best remembered as one of the contributors to Philippine Folk-Tales, he helped bring traditional stories from the Philippines to English-language readers in the early 1900s. Very little biographical material about him is widely available, which gives his work an extra air of mystery.

1 Audiobook

Philippine Folk-Tales

Philippine Folk-Tales

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

About the author

Berton L. Maxfield, identified in public-domain library records as Berton Lewis Maxfield (1873–1937), is chiefly known today for his part in Philippine Folk-Tales. That collection gathered stories from several regions and traditions in the Philippines and was later preserved by Project Gutenberg, helping new generations discover the book.

The surviving records available online are thin, so a full life story is hard to reconstruct with confidence. What can be confirmed is that his name remains attached to this enduring folklore collection, where he appears alongside Clara Kern Bayliss, Fletcher Gardner, Laura Estelle Watson Benedict, and W. H. Millington.

Because reliable biographical detail is scarce, Maxfield is best approached through the work itself: a window into early efforts to collect, translate, and share folk narratives across cultures. For listeners interested in folklore, his legacy rests less on fame than on the stories he helped preserve.