George N. McLean

George N. McLean was an American author active in the late nineteenth century. Confirmed works linked to him include The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America (1888) and How to Do Business; or, The Secret of Success in Retail Merchandizing (1890), which point to a writer moving between current events, politics, and practical advice for everyday business life.

The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America is his best-known book today. It was published in Chicago and Philadelphia in 1888 and presents a detailed, highly partisan account of the Haymarket affair and the fears surrounding anarchism in that era. The tone is forceful and clearly shaped by the anxieties of its time, which makes the book useful not just as narrative history, but also as a window into public feeling in the years after the 1886 bombing.

Reliable biographical details about McLean himself are surprisingly scarce in the sources available here, so much of his personal life remains unclear. What can be said with confidence is that his surviving work places him among the many energetic, entrepreneurial writers of the Gilded Age, producing books meant to inform, persuade, and capture readers' attention.