author
Katharine Butler Hathaway
1890–1942
Best remembered for a candid memoir about illness, resilience, and everyday joy, this American writer turned a difficult childhood into a book that has moved generations of readers.
1 Audiobook
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories
by Elizabeth Ashe, Henry Seidel Canby, Cornelia A. P. (Cornelia Atwood Pratt) Comer, Charles Caldwell Dobie, Madeleine Z. (Madeleine Zabriskie) Doty, H. G. (Harrison Griswold) Dwight, John Galsworthy, Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Katharine Butler Hathaway, Zephine Humphrey, Mary Lerner, F. J. Louriet, E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas, Margaret Lynn, C. A. Mercer, Margaret Prescott Montague, E. (Edith) Nesbit, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Dallas Lore Sharp, Margaret Pollock Sherwood, Ernest Starr, Amy Wentworth Stone, Arthur Russell Taylor
About the author
Born in Baltimore in 1890, Katharine Butler Hathaway was an American writer best known for The Little Locksmith, a memoir drawn from her experience with spinal tuberculosis in childhood. The book is remembered for its clear, unsentimental voice and for the way it balances pain with humor, curiosity, and determination.
Her writing grew out of a life shaped by long periods of illness and physical limitation, yet it is often praised for its warmth and independence of spirit. Along with her memoir, she also wrote fiction, and her work helped secure her reputation as a distinctive literary voice of the early 20th century.
Hathaway died in 1942. She remains especially notable to readers who value personal writing that is honest, brave, and quietly uplifting.