William John Hopkins

Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1863, William John Hopkins was an American author who also worked as a scientist and technical writer. Alongside fiction, he wrote books about telephones and telephone lines, showing how comfortable he was with the fast-changing technology of his time.

He is especially remembered for children's books such as The Sandman: His Farm Stories and The Sandman: His Sea Stories, as well as later works like The Clammer, The Clammer and the Submarine, and She Blows! and Sparm at That!. Many of his stories draw on coastal New England and give young readers a strong sense of place, curiosity, and adventure.

Hopkins died in 1926, but his work has stayed available through public-domain libraries and reprints. What makes him interesting today is the combination of two worlds that do not always meet: the precise mind of an engineer and the imaginative voice of a storyteller.