George Barr McCutcheon

Born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in 1866, George Barr McCutcheon went on to become a successful American novelist and playwright. Before his fiction career fully took off, he studied at Purdue and worked in journalism, experience that likely helped give his writing its brisk, readable style.

He is most closely associated with Graustark (1901), the first in a series of romantic adventure novels set in a fictional Eastern European kingdom. He also wrote Brewster's Millions (1902), a comic novel that proved especially durable and was adapted many times for stage and screen. His work was widely read in its day and helped popularize the kind of lively, escapist storytelling that readers still enjoy.

McCutcheon died in New York City in 1928. Though fashions in fiction have changed, he remains remembered for creating imaginative settings, fast-moving plots, and entertainment-first novels that captured a large audience in the early modern era of American publishing.