Natalie Sumner Lincoln

Born in Washington, D.C., in 1881, she came from a literary and public-service family: her mother, Jeanie Gould Lincoln, was also a writer, and her father, Dr. Nathan Smith Lincoln, was a physician who had served in Washington at the national level. That background placed her close to politics, publishing, and public life from an early age.

She became a notably productive author, publishing mysteries, serial adventures, and books for younger readers in the early decades of the 20th century. She is especially remembered for the Janice Day books for girls and for crime and suspense novels that helped build her reputation with magazine and book audiences.

Her career was cut short when she died in 1935, but her fiction remains part of the lively world of American popular writing between the Victorian era and modern detective fiction. She is often noted today for the pace, variety, and sheer volume of her work.