May Agnes Early (later Fleming) was born in the Portland area of Saint John, New Brunswick, on 14 November 1840, to Bernard and Mary Doherty Early, Irish immigrants. While still a schoolgirl, at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, she began to publish in the weekly story papers. Using the pseudonym Cousin May Carleton, she was soon contributing regularly to three or four papers. She quickly progressed from short stories to longer stories, becoming proficient in developing complex plots and in combining romantic and sentimental elements with such gothic elements as mystery, disguise, startling events, and murder so that the weekly episodes of her stories left her readers in suspense. By the time she was twenty her novels were being serialized in the story papers, then published in cheap paperbacks. By the time of her marriage, on 24 August 1865, to John William Fleming, she was established as a popular writer of...