author
Peter Clark MacFarlane
1871–1924
A novelist, public speaker, and former actor, he moved through several careers before building a national magazine audience. His fiction ranged from popular stories to politically charged novels, and some of it later found its way to the screen.
1 Audiobook
Held to Answer: A Novel
by Peter Clark MacFarlane
About the author
Born in St. Clair County, Missouri, in 1871, Peter Clark MacFarlane worked first as a railroad clerk, then studied at the Chicago Baptist Seminary. He served as a Baptist pastor for a time before leaving the ministry and turning toward the stage and, eventually, full-time writing.
MacFarlane became known as an American novelist and public speaker whose work appeared in widely read magazines. He wrote novels including Those Who Have Come Back and Tongues of Flame, and several of his stories were adapted for film, including Molly of the Follies and Tongues of Flame.
His career shows an unusual mix of religion, theater, and popular fiction, which gives his writing an energetic, public-facing feel. He died in San Francisco in 1924, leaving behind work that reflects both the magazine culture and the social debates of the early twentieth century.