author
George Francis Dawson
Best remembered for the 1883 narrative poem Myra's Well: A Tale of All-Hallow-E'en, this little-documented 19th-century writer left behind a compact but intriguing body of work that also includes a substantial biography of Civil War leader John A. Logan.
1 Audiobook
Myra's Well: A Tale of All-Hallow-E'en
by George Francis Dawson
About the author
George Francis Dawson appears to have been an American writer active in the late 19th century. Reliable online records for him are sparse, but his name is attached to Myra's Well: A Tale of All-Hallow-E'en, published in 1883 and now preserved by Project Gutenberg.
He also wrote Life and Services of Gen. John A. Logan: As Soldier and Statesman, a long 1887 biography of the Union general and politician John A. Logan. Some later listings describe Dawson as an "Ex-Librarian of the United States Senate," but because that detail was not confirmed from a stronger primary source here, it should be treated cautiously.
What survives most clearly is the range of his writing: on one side, a Halloween-themed literary work in verse; on the other, a large political and military biography. Even with so little biographical information available, that contrast gives a vivid sense of a writer who moved comfortably between imaginative storytelling and public history.