Samuel Merwin

Born in Evanston, Illinois, on October 6, 1874, Samuel Merwin was part of the busy literary world of his era. He attended Northwestern University and went on to build a career not only as a fiction writer and playwright, but also as an editor.

Merwin worked at Success magazine, serving first as associate editor and later as editor. In 1907, the magazine sent him to China to investigate the opium trade, an assignment that shows how closely his writing life was tied to journalism and public issues as well as entertainment.

He is remembered as a versatile author whose work included novels, short fiction, and plays, sometimes in collaboration with Henry Kitchell Webster. Merwin died on October 17, 1936, but his books remain of interest to readers exploring popular American writing from the early 1900s.