author
Henry F. (Henry Francis) Keenan
1850–1928
A journalist turned novelist, he wrote sharp, socially minded fiction and is best remembered for The Money-Makers, an anonymous answer to John Hay’s The Bread-Winners. His work also drew on Civil War experience, giving his historical novels a grounded, lived-in feel.
1 Audiobook
The Iron Game: A Tale of the War
by Henry F. (Henry Francis) Keenan
About the author
Born in Rochester, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, Henry Francis Keenan was an American writer and journalist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sources agree that he became known as both a newspaperman and a novelist, and that he died in 1928.
He is best known for The Money-Makers (1885), published anonymously as a response to John Hay’s The Bread-Winners. That book gave him a place in the era’s debates about labor, class, and wealth, while later works showed his interest in history and war.
Keenan also wrote fiction connected to the American Civil War, including The Iron Game. Across his work, he combined a reporter’s eye for public life with a storyteller’s taste for conflict, politics, and character.