L. Roy Terwilliger

Very little biographical information about L. Roy Terwilliger appears to be readily available in major public sources. He is chiefly known as the author of Cuban Folk-Lore, published in Havana in 1908 and later preserved by Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive.

That book explores superstition, witchcraft, shrines, and older cultural traditions in Cuba, giving him a small but lasting place in the record of early English-language writing about Cuban folklore. Because so few confirmed details about his life are easy to verify, the work itself remains the clearest introduction to who he was as a writer.

For modern listeners, Terwilliger is interesting less as a famous literary figure than as a historical observer. His writing captures one outsider's early-1900s view of Cuban popular belief and custom, which makes his book useful both as a folklore text and as a document of its time.