Edith K. (Edith Kellogg) Dunton

Born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1875, Edith Kellogg Dunton became a popular American author of fiction for younger readers. She is most closely associated with the Betty Wales series, which follows college-age heroines through friendship, study, and growing independence.

Dunton graduated from Smith College in 1897, and that experience clearly shaped the campus world that appears in her best-known books. She also wrote under the pseudonym Margaret Warde, a name that appears on the Betty Wales novels.

Her work belongs to a long tradition of girls' and young women's fiction from the early 1900s: warm, energetic, and interested in character as much as plot. Dunton died in 1944, but many of her books remain accessible today through digital library projects, helping new readers discover a once-beloved voice.