author
George N. McLean
Best known for a vivid 1888 account of the Haymarket affair, this late-19th-century writer tackled explosive political subjects and practical everyday life alike. His surviving books suggest an author interested both in social unrest and in the nuts and bolts of business success.
1 Audiobook
About the author
George N. McLean is a little-documented American author whose work survives mainly through late-19th-century books and later digital archives. He is credited with The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America (1888), a detailed account of anarchism in the United States and the events surrounding the Haymarket case in Chicago, and with How to Do Business: Or, The Secret of Success in Retail Merchandizing.
Because reliable biographical records about him are scarce, it is safer to focus on the books themselves than on personal details that are hard to confirm. What can be said with confidence is that his writing reflects strong interests in public controversy, commerce, and the fast-changing American society of his era.
Today, McLean is remembered less as a famous literary figure than as the author of period works that still attract readers interested in labor history, political conflict, and practical business advice from the 1800s.