Lilian Garis

Born Lilian Cleo McNamara in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1873, she became one of the most productive writers of children's fiction in the United States. She wrote under her married name, Lilian Garis, and built a remarkably large body of work across the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s.

She is especially associated with the Bobbsey Twins series, for which she wrote many volumes, and she also created or contributed to other popular books for young readers. Her career reflects the fast-moving world of series publishing in the early 20th century, when authors often wrote adventure and family stories for children at an astonishing pace.

Garis died in Newark, New Jersey, in 1954. Though her name is not always as widely recognized as the series she helped make famous, her work reached a huge audience and remains part of the history of classic American juvenile fiction.