F. Berkeley (Frank Berkeley) Smith

Born in 1869 and remembered as an American author, illustrator, and architect, he built a career that crossed several creative fields. Sources including the Delaware Art Museum and Project Gutenberg identify him in all three roles, which helps explain the visual, scene-setting quality of his writing.

He is especially associated with books such as The Real Latin Quarter and How Paris Amuses Itself, works that introduce readers to Paris through a mix of travel writing, cultural observation, and storytelling. His writing has an easy, attentive feel, shaped by someone clearly interested in how places look, how people move through them, and how city life creates its own drama.

For readers coming to him now, the appeal is simple: he offers a vivid window into the social and artistic world of turn-of-the-century Paris. He died in 1931.