Henry M. Avery

Henry M. Avery was a 19th-century American author best known for sensational frontier fiction. A Northern Illinois University profile identifies him as born in Bethel, Maine, around 1840, and notes that he later headed west, where stories about trapping, scouting, and life on the plains became central to his public image.

He is closely linked with the pseudonym Maj. Max Martine, the name under which works like Old Bear-Paw, the Trapper King appeared. Contemporary publicity presented him in dramatic terms—part adventurer, part showman—which fit perfectly with the popular story papers and dime novels of the era.

Today, Avery is remembered less as a canonical literary figure than as a lively representative of popular American adventure writing. His work reflects the tastes of readers who wanted action, danger, and romanticized tales of the West, and it offers a window into the storytelling culture of the late 1800s.