author
James Arthur MacKnight
A Utah-born writer whose fiction drew on frontier life, Mormon communities, and the American West. Best known for novels including Hagar and the autobiographical Little Mormon Jim, he published work that blended adventure, regional detail, and personal experience.
1 Audiobook
Hagar
by James Arthur MacKnight
About the author
Born in Salt Lake City in 1855, James Arthur MacKnight was an American author associated with stories of the western United States and Mormon life. Sources consistently identify him as the son of Mormon pioneer parents, and later references connect his life to both Utah and Georgia, where records list his death in 1923.
His best-known books include Hagar and Little Mormon Jim. Little Mormon Jim has been described as an autobiographical novel that remained unpublished for many years before eventually appearing in print, which helps explain why his name still surfaces in library catalogs and reprint editions.
MacKnight is a fairly obscure figure today, and the surviving biographical record appears limited. Even so, the works linked to him suggest a writer interested in memory, identity, and the rougher edges of life in the 19th-century American West.