Emilie Baker Loring

Born in Boston and raised in a literary family, she was the daughter of playwright and publisher George M. Baker. She started writing in 1914, well into adulthood, and published her first novel in the 1920s, going on to build a large readership with romantic fiction that mixed suspense, family feeling, and a strong sense of moral courage.

Her novels were widely read in the mid-20th century, and her popularity continued after her death in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1951. A number of additional books appeared posthumously, prepared from material she left behind, which helped keep her name familiar to generations of romance readers.

Sources found during this search disagree on whether she was born in 1864 or 1866, so that detail is best treated with caution. What is clear is that she became a notably prolific American romance novelist and one of those writers whose devoted audience kept discovering her work for decades.