Frank R. Stockton(1834-1902)
- Writer
American popular novelist and short-story writer of mainly humorous
fiction, best known as the author of the title story of a collection
called The Lady, or the Tiger? (1884). Stockton contributed to and was
on the staff of Hearth and Home and in 1873 became assistant editor of
the St. Nicholas Magazine. His earliest fiction was written for
children. Among his most popular children's stories were those
collected in Ting-a-Ling Tales (1870) and The Floating Prince, and
Other Fairy Tales (1881). His adult novel Rudder Grange (1879),
originally serialized in Scribner's Monthly, recounted the whimsically
fantastic and amusing adventures of a family living on a canal boat.
Its success encouraged two sequels, Rudder Grangers Abroad (1891) and
Pomona's Travels (1894). The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs.
Aleshine (1886) told of two middle-aged women on a sea voyage to Japan
who become castaways on a deserted island. A sequel appeared in 1888 as
The Dusantes. Though he continued to write some juvenile fiction,
Stockton wrote mostly for adults after 1887. He also wrote a book of
history, Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coast (1898).