author
Emily Grant Hutchings
Best remembered for one of literary history’s strangest episodes, this Missouri writer and journalist became famous for claiming she received a novel from Mark Twain’s spirit through a Ouija board. Her story sits at the unusual crossroads of early 20th-century journalism, spiritualism, and copyright drama.
1 Audiobook
Indian Summer
by Emily Grant Hutchings
About the author
Born in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1870, Emily Grant Hutchings was an American writer and journalist. She was also known by her maiden name, Emily Rosalie Schmidt, and spent much of her career in Missouri.
She is chiefly remembered for Jap Herron (1917), a novel she said was dictated to her by the deceased Mark Twain through a Ouija board, with the help of medium Lola Hays. The claim caused a sensation and helped turn Hutchings into a curious footnote in American literary history.
What makes her especially interesting is how her life connects hometown pride, belief in spiritualism, and the world of publishing. Though Jap Herron remains controversial, Hutchings is still remembered for the sheer boldness of the claim and for the unusual place she holds in the long afterlife of Mark Twain’s reputation.