J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham

Born in Portland, Maine, in 1809, Joseph Holt Ingraham spent part of his youth at sea before heading south, where he worked as a teacher of languages in Mississippi. Those travels fed directly into his writing, and he became known for lively tales of pirates, travel, and frontier adventure at a time when American popular fiction was booming.

Ingraham was remarkably prolific, producing large numbers of novels and magazine stories and sometimes publishing under the pen name F. Clinton Barrington. He is especially remembered for religiously themed novels such as The Prince of the House of David, The Pillar of Fire, and The Throne of David, books that helped keep his name in print long after many of his other works faded from view.

In the later part of his life, he entered the Episcopal ministry and was ordained in 1852. He died in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1860, leaving behind a career that ranged from sea adventures and historical romances to some of the best-known biblical fiction of the 19th century.