James Parton

Born in Canterbury, England, in 1822, he moved to the United States as a child and later built a career as a journalist, editor, and biographer. After teaching for a time, he worked in New York publishing before finding major success with The Life of Horace Greeley in 1855.

He became especially known for lively, research-driven biographies of major public figures, including Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire. His work was widely read in its day, and later critics and reference works often treated him as an important early practitioner of modern biography.

He was also connected to a notable literary circle through his marriage to writer Sara Payson Willis, better known as Fanny Fern. He died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1891, leaving behind a body of work that helped shape how American readers encountered famous lives.