author
Maro O. (Maro Orlando) Rolfe
1852–1925
A prolific journalist, novelist, and historian, this late-19th-century writer moved easily from frontier adventure to detective fiction and local history. His work captures the fast-moving spirit of popular American storytelling in the newspaper and dime-novel era.
1 Audiobook
The Phantom Rider; or The Giant Chief's Fate: A tale of the old Dahcotah country
by Maro O. (Maro Orlando) Rolfe
About the author
Born in New York on January 28, 1852, Maro Orlando Rolfe was raised in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and began publishing while still a teenager. A biographical sketch from Northern Illinois University describes him as a journalist, novelist, and historian, and notes that he started writing at about fifteen and went on to build a long, varied career.
Rolfe wrote across several popular forms, including adventure stories, detective fiction, and historical writing. He also used a number of pseudonyms, and his name appears in connection with story papers and dime novels as well as nonfiction works such as Old Tioga and Ninety Years of Its Existence, showing how comfortably he moved between entertainment and regional history.
He died on April 15, 1925. Today, Rolfe is remembered less as a single famous-name author than as a hardworking professional writer of his time—one of those versatile figures who helped shape the reading culture of 19th- and early-20th-century America.