Elinor Macartney Lane

Born in Maryland in 1864, she became an American novelist whose work found a wide audience in the first decade of the twentieth century. Before turning fully to fiction, she published short stories and was also known to have taught in public schools in the Washington area.

Her novels include Mills of God (1901), Nancy Stair (1904), and Katrine (1909). Nancy Stair, a Scottish historical romance, was especially well known and helped secure her reputation with readers of popular fiction.

She died on March 15, 1909, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Though her life was relatively short, her novels remain part of the rich world of turn-of-the-century American popular literature.