author
Ida Reade Allen
A prolific writer in the late 19th-century women’s popular-fiction market, she published sentimental and suspenseful stories for readers who loved romance, secrets, and sudden reversals of fortune. Her novels were closely tied to the dime novel world and to publishers such as Street & Smith.
2 Audiobooks
The breath of slander : or, Virtue triumphs
by Ida Reade Allen
Heart to heart : or, A race for love
by Ida Reade Allen
About the author
Ida Reade Allen was an American author associated with the women’s dime novel and cheap-fiction market of the late 1800s. The American Women’s Dime Novel Project includes her among writers in that popular publishing world, and surviving editions of her work show her novels appearing in series connected with Street & Smith.
Books attributed to her include Heart to Heart; or, A Race for Love, The Breath of Slander; or, Virtue Triumphs, At Another’s Bidding, and Too Quickly Judged. The titles and surviving descriptions suggest the kind of fiction readers expected from the era: romance, melodrama, mystery, social danger, and moral testing.
Very little clear biographical information about her seems to be readily confirmed from major reference sources, so she is best understood today through her books and their place in American popular publishing rather than through a detailed personal record.