author
John Treat Irving
1812–1906
A New York writer from the famous Irving family, he turned his travels in the American West into lively frontier stories that helped bring prairie adventure to 19th-century readers. His work mixed magazine fiction, novels, and sketches with an eye for character and place.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in New York in 1812, he was the son of John Treat Irving and a nephew of Washington Irving. He studied at Columbia and trained in law, but like several members of his family, he was drawn more strongly to literary work than to legal practice.
He is best remembered as an American novelist and traveler whose writing drew on journeys in the West. His frontier-themed books include Indian Sketches and The Hunters of the Prairie; or, The Hawk Chief, and his stories also appeared in magazines such as The Knickerbocker. These works placed him among the 19th-century writers who helped shape popular images of the prairie and the American borderlands.
Irving lived a long life that stretched well into the 20th century, dying in 1906. Although he is not as widely known now as his uncle Washington Irving, he remains an interesting figure for readers curious about early American adventure writing and the literary world of old New York.