Frank R. Stockton

Frank Richard Stockton was an American writer and humourist, best known today for a series of innovative children's fairy tales that were widely popular during the last decades of the 19th century.

Born in Philadelphia in 1834, Stockton was the son of a prominent Methodist minister who discouraged him from a writing career. After marrying Mary Ann Edwards Tuttle, he and his wife moved to Burlington, New Jersey, where he produced some of his first literary work. The couple then moved to Nutley, New Jersey.

For years he supported himself as a wood engraver until his father's death in 1860. In 1867, he moved back to Philadelphia to write for a newspaper founded by his brother. His first fairy tale, "Ting-a-ling," was published that year in The Riverside Magazine; his first book collection appeared in 1870. He was also an editor for Hearth and Home magazine in the early 1870s. Around 1899, he moved to Charles Town, West Virginia.

He died in Washington, DC, on April 20, 1902, of a cerebral hemorrhage and is buried at The Woodlands in Philadelphia.

His most famous fable, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" (1882), is about a man sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter.

His 1895 adventure novel The Adventures of Captain Horn was the third-best-selling book in the United States in 1895.

Stockton's work of science fiction, The Great War Syndicate, describes a late 19th century British–American war.