Prentiss Ingraham

Born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1843, Prentiss Ingraham was the son of novelist Joseph Holt Ingraham. He studied at St. Timothy’s Military Academy and Jefferson College, and later became known as a Confederate officer before turning to a long writing career.

Ingraham worked in journalism, wrote plays, and built a huge readership through dime novels and serialized adventure fiction. He is best remembered for his many Buffalo Bill stories, and sources from Mississippi literary history describe him as one of the state’s most prolific writers, with hundreds of novels and novelettes credited to him.

He died in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1904. Though not as widely read today as he once was, his work remains part of the history of popular American western and adventure fiction.