Payne Erskine

Born Emma Payne Erskine in 1854 and active under the pen name Payne Erskine, she was an American writer whose books appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Surviving catalog and book records connect her with novels such as When the Gates Lift Up Their Heads, The Mountain Girl, The Eye of Dread, Joyful Heatherby, and A Girl of the Blue Ridge.

Her writing seems to have ranged from poetry to fiction, with titles that suggest an interest in history, place, and dramatic storytelling. The Blue Ridge setting associated with some of her best-known novels gives her work a clear sense of region, which likely appealed to readers of popular American fiction of her era.

She died in 1924. Although she is not widely known today, her books remain part of the record of American women’s writing from that period, and her career shows the breadth of literary work published by authors who moved between verse and novels.