Samuel A. (Samuel Arthur) Derieux

Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1881, he later grew up in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, a setting that shaped much of his fiction. He studied at Wofford College and then at Richmond College, earning his B.A. in 1904, before doing graduate work at Johns Hopkins and the University of Virginia.

He taught English at several colleges, including Bethel College, the University of North Carolina, and Wake Forest College, and later worked as an editor for The American Magazine. He became known especially for short stories set in the South and focused on dogs, hunting, and the bond between people and animals.

Derieux died in New York in 1922, at just 40 years old. Though his life was brief, his stories remained memorable enough to keep circulating in print and public-domain collections, and he is still associated with humane, sharply observed tales of Southern life.