author
Reina Melcher Marquis
b. 1881
Best known today for the 1914 novel The Torch Bearer, this early-20th-century American writer also published work in magazines and moved in literary circles. Her surviving record is slim, which gives her work an extra air of discovery for modern readers.
1 Audiobook
The Torch Bearer
by Reina Melcher Marquis
About the author
Reina Melcher Marquis was an American author active in the early 1900s. Library and ebook records identify her as Reina Melcher Marquis, 1881-, and her best-known surviving book is The Torch Bearer, published by D. Appleton and Company in 1914.
The novel has remained accessible through Project Gutenberg, where it is listed as a work of American literature and associated with themes including marriage, motherhood, and women writers. The dedication in the 1914 text shows a personal literary connection to her husband, the writer Don Marquis.
Beyond that, confirmed biographical details are limited in the sources I could verify here. Some web pages suggest she also contributed to magazines, but because the available record is scattered and not always consistent, it is safest to remember her primarily through The Torch Bearer and the glimpse it offers into American fiction of its time.