author

James Edgar Smith

b. 1864

A little-known late-19th-century writer whose surviving record points to work in both poetry and drama, including a stage adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Though biographical details are scarce, the books linked to his name suggest a literary career shaped by ambitious, serious themes.

1 Audiobook

The Scarlet Stigma: A Drama in Four Acts

The Scarlet Stigma: A Drama in Four Acts

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Edgar Smith

About the author

The surviving catalog record for this author is very slim, but James Edgar Smith is associated in library listings with The Scarlet Stigma: A Drama in Four Acts, published in 1899 and described as being based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Open Library also links his name to other works, including Near Bethlehem, and Other Poems and The Great Pan, which suggests he wrote in more than one form rather than staying only with drama.

Because reliable biographical sources were not readily available, details such as his birthplace, later life, and literary circle could not be confirmed here. What does come through is the outline of a writer from the late 1800s whose published work reached both the stage and the page.