Millicent Schwab Bender

Millicent Schwab Bender was an American author born in 1876 and died in 1974. The work most clearly connected with her today is Great Opera Stories: Taken from Original Sources in Old German, published by The Macmillan Company in 1912.

That book adapts opera narratives into accessible prose and includes stories connected with works such as Hansel and Gretel, Lohengrin, The Flying Dutchman, The Master Singers, and Tannhäuser. Library and public-domain records describe it as literature about opera plots for younger readers, which suggests she wrote with a gift for turning demanding material into inviting storytelling.

Very little biographical information about her was readily confirmed in the sources I found, so a full personal sketch is hard to give with confidence. What does stand out is the character of her writing: she seems to have been interested in opening the world of opera to general readers, especially children, through straightforward narrative rather than formal musical analysis.