author
Linn Boyd Porter
1851–1916
A once-popular American novelist and journalist, he wrote brisk, sensational fiction for a wide readership and often published under the pen name Albert Ross. His books capture the melodrama, social anxieties, and everyday curiosities of late 19th-century American popular reading.
1 Audiobook
A Black Adonis
by Linn Boyd Porter
About the author
Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, on December 20, 1851, Linn Boyd Porter became a prolific American novelist, journalist, and traveler. He is best remembered for publishing many of his novels under the name Albert Ross, a byline closely associated with his commercial success.
Porter wrote numerous works of popular fiction, including Speaking of Ellen, A Black Adonis, and Riverfall. Contemporary and later reference sources describe him as a writer of sensational novels, the kind of fast-moving, accessible stories that found a large audience in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
He died on June 29, 1916. Although he is not as widely known today as some of his contemporaries, his work offers a lively glimpse into the tastes of mass-market fiction in his era, and his career reflects the busy overlap between journalism, travel writing, and popular storytelling.