author
Claude H. Wetmore
1863–1944
A journalist and adventure writer from Ohio, he blended travel, reporting, and fast-moving fiction in books that ranged from Peru and Brazil to St. Louis politics. His work sits at an interesting crossroads between boys’ adventure stories, early speculative fiction, and Progressive Era journalism.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on November 7, 1863, Claude Hazeltine Wetmore became an American author and editor whose career moved across several kinds of writing. Sources describe him as educated at Western Reserve University and the École Polytechnique in Lausanne, and as someone who spent many years traveling in South America and Europe before turning that experience into fiction and nonfiction.
Wetmore wrote adventure novels such as Sweepers of the Sea, Incaland, and In a Brazilian Jungle, along with nonfiction including The Battle Against Bribery and Out of a Fleur-de-Lis, a book tied to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He also worked in journalism and editing in St. Louis, including at the Post-Dispatch, and his name appears alongside Lincoln Steffens on "Tweed Days in St. Louis," a piece associated with the early muckraking era.
He died in Ohio on April 29, 1944. Today, Wetmore is a lesser-known figure, but his books still offer a vivid mix of turn-of-the-century curiosity, reform-minded reporting, and wide-ranging adventure.