Who Ate the Pink Sweetmeat? And Other Christmas Stories

Kate Upson Clark

1851–1935

An American novelist and journalist whose popular fiction often centered on home life, relationships, and the social world around women. Writing as Kate Upson Clark, she built a long literary career that stretched from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth.

Susan Coolidge

1835–1905

Best known for the beloved Katy books, this 19th-century American writer brought warmth, humor, and everyday family life to generations of young readers. She also drew on her Civil War nursing experience and her close-knit New England upbringing in shaping her work.

Lady Dunboyne

Known for devotional and family reading from the late Victorian period, this writer published as Lady Dunboyne and is linked with the name Marion Clifford. Her surviving work has the gentle, moral tone typical of religious books written for everyday readers.

Edward Everett Hale

1822–1909

A bestselling 19th-century American writer and Unitarian minister, he is remembered for pairing lively storytelling with a strong sense of civic purpose. His most famous tale, The Man Without a Country, made him widely known and helped secure his place in American literary history.

Best known today for the Christmas tale "The Patroncito’s Christmas," this little-documented 19th-century writer survives in anthologies that mix warmth, adventure, and moral feeling. The mystery around the author adds an extra layer of old-book charm.