author
Charles Weathers Bump
1872–1908
A Baltimore journalist and storyteller, he moved easily between newspaper work, local history, travel writing, and imaginative fiction. His surviving books suggest a writer drawn both to the real landscapes of the Mid-Atlantic and to the odd, dreamlike possibilities hidden inside everyday life.
1 Audiobook
The Mermaid of Druid Lake, and Other Stories
by Charles Weathers Bump
About the author
Born in Baltimore in 1872, Charles Weathers Bump was an American writer and journalist whose career seems to have centered on reporting, editing, and historical research. Records of his work connect him with The Baltimore Sun, and library catalogs preserve books that show the range of his interests.
His best-known titles include Down the Historic Susquehanna (1899), a travel narrative following the river from Otsego to the Chesapeake, and The Mermaid of Druid Lake, and Other Stories, a collection that mixes fantasy, adventure, and local color. That blend of factual curiosity and imaginative play makes his work especially appealing to readers who enjoy forgotten voices from the turn of the twentieth century.
Bump died young in 1908. Even with a small surviving body of work, he stands out as one of those authors whose writing opens a window onto both the literary tastes and the regional life of his time.