Joseph Holt Ingraham (26 January 1809-18 December 1860) wrote nearly ten percent of the novels published in the 1840s, capturing the fancy of the reading public and the interest of the era as few authors did in their own lifetime. Though he was born in Portland, Maine, and spent several years of his life in Boston, he was remarkably unaffected by the Transcendental interests of the age. What did interest him was the advancement of American literature, and his phenomenal output of more than a hundred novels and well over a hundred periodical contributions was most often firmly based in American places and people. Ingraham apparently inherited from his shipowner grandfather a love of travel that stood him in good stead. Also valuable to the future writer was a good academic background, gained primarily at the Hallowell Academy in Maine. Though he spent only a year at Yale in 1828-...