Vintage Novels Set in Indiana
VINTAGE BOOKS -Indiana Novels
The Outlet
Adams, Andy
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1905
Andy Adams (1859-1935) was born in Whitley County, IN and raised on a family farm, but left for Texas as a young man, where he spent 10 years as a cowhand. From there he went to Colorado to try mining. At some point he took up writing and produced several successful books.
Prince Cinderella – Free Novels Set in Indiana PDF
Alexander, Grace
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1921
Grace Caroline Alexander (1872-?) was born in Indianapolis, and was a teacher in the public schools there for many years. From 1891 to 1903 she also was a music critic and editorial writer for the Indianapolis News, and after 1904, a reader for the book publisher Bobbs-Merrill.
The Blue Moon; A Tale of the Flatlands – Famous Indiana Authors
Anderson, David
Boston: Bobbs-Merrill 1919
The scene of the story is laid in Indiana in the late forties of the 19th century. The hero is a young man known as the Pearlhunter to his companions along the Wabash and he himself does not know his own name. Ever since he can remember he has lived with his mother among the pearl fishers. She is a woman of refinement, but he knows nothing of her past. She tells him part of her history, but her death cuts it short, and he goes out into the world nameless. The story has to do with the unraveling of this mystery and with the adventures that follow his finding of the wonderful pearl, known as the Blue Moon.
An Indiana Man
Armstrong, LeRoy
Chicago: Schulte 1891
Dwight Le Roy Armstrong (1854-1927) was born in Plymouth, IN and was educated in the local schools. He attended Indiana University for a time, but left to take a newspaper job. After working as a reporter he became a newspaper editor in Lafayette for 10 years, leaving in 1905 for Salt Lake City, where he continued to edit newspapers. Besides fiction, he also wrote histories and biographies.
Knights in Fustian; A War Time Story of Indiana
Brown, Caroline
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1900
A Civil War story.
A Princess of Fiji
Churchill, William
NY: Dodd, Mead 1892
In the Twilight Zone
Craven, Roger Carey
Boston: C.M. 1909
Life Sketches from Common Paths – Famous Indiana Authors
Dumont, Julia L.
NY: Appleton 1856
Julia Louisa Cory Dumont (1794-1857) was raised in New York by a widowed mother. She arrived in Vevay, IN in 1814 with her husband, where she began a long dual career; as an inspiring and revered teacher, and as a popular and respected author. You can find a biographical article about her by Skelcher, Lucille Detraz and Jane Lucille Skelcher at the Indiana Cultural History page of this site.
The Big Brother
Eggleston, George Cary
NY: Putnam 1875
Historical fiction, about the War of 1812 and Tecumseh’s war.
The Hoosier Schoolmaster: A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana – Free Novels Set in Indiana PDF
Eggleston, Edward
NY: Grosset & Dunlap. 1871
“The Hoosier schoolmaster is a young man who undertakes the management of the Flat Creek school. He fights the boys; “boards roun’ ” with their parents; incurs the hostility of a gang of horse-thieves and burglars, who have at their head the principal physician among the Flat Crickers; narrowly escapes lynching at the hands of a mob instigated by the robbers..”
Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) was born in Vevay, Indiana. He was both a novelist and a historian, authoring several texts of U.S. history.
The Hoosier School-boy
Eggleston, Edward
NY: Scribner’s Sons 1900
See the biographical note on Eggleston at his other novel, above.
Signing the Contract, and What It Cost
Finley, Martha
NY: Dodd, Mead 1879
Martha Finley (1828-1909) was born in Chillicothe, OH; daughter of a doctor. Her family moved to South Bend, IN when she was eight years old, where she was educated in private schools. She then conducted a school of her own. In 1854 she moved east, living in Philadelphia and New York where she taught school and wrote newspaper stories and Sunday-school books. During the Civil War she began producing novels that became bestsellers.
Kismet
Fleming, George
Boston: Roberts Brothers 1877
Elkswatawa, or, The Prophet of the West. A Tale of the Frontier vol 1
– Volume 2
French, James Strange
NY: Harper 1836
James Strange French (1807-1886) was a lawyer, novelist, and later a hotel keeper. He was educated at William and Mary and the University of Virginia, then read law with his uncle Robert French in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 1831, French represented Nat Turner, as well as a number of other slaves accused of participating in Nat Turner’s slave rebellion. He was the author of at least one other novel, Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee (1833).
Gee-boy
Hooper, Cyrus Lauron
NY: Lane 1903
Cyrus Lauron Hooper (1863-?) was born at Rockport, IN. He graduated from Indiana University, and also attended the University of Chicago. He worked as an administrator in the Chicago city school system. Besides a few works of fiction, he also authored a number of textbooks.
A Man Story – Famous Indiana Authors
Howe, Edgar Watson
Boston: Ticknor 1889
Edgar Watson Howe (1853-1937) was born at Treaty, IN. Mostly self-educated, he began work at a printing office at the age of 12. At 19 he was publishing a newspaper in Golden, CO, and then moved on to Atchison, KS, where he edited the Atchison Daily Globe for 34 years. During his tenure the Globe became the most extensively quoted newspaper in the U.S., as other newspapers used his material. In 1911 he turned the paper over to his sons, devoting himself to travel and travel-writing. He was known as the “Sage of Potato Hill”.
Hoosier Odd Fellows: A Story of Indiana
Kinkead, James H.
Cincinnati: Kinkead 1877
The Rugged Way
Kramer, Harold Morton
Boston, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard 1911
Harold Morton Kramer (1873-1930) was born in Frankfort, IN; the youngest of 10 children. He as educated in the Frankfort public schools. In 1898 he volunteered for service in the Spanish-American War, and then volunteered again in WWI. However, he was too old for military service in 1917, so was sent to France with the YMCA to help provide support for the troops. He began his career as a printer in Frankfort, and soon became a newspaper editor there. In 1910 he retired from newspapers and supported himself by lecturing.
An Indiana Girl – Free Novels Set in Indiana PDF
Lincoln, Fred S.
Washington: Neale 1901
Frederick S. Lincoln (1874-?) was born in Ottumwa, IA, moving with his parents to Logansport, IN as a toddler. He also lived for a time in Columbus, IN.
A Forest Hearth : A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties
Major, Charles
NY: Macmillan 1903
The author was born in Indianapolis in 1856 but lived in Shelbyville from the age of 13. He was a popular writer whose first novel appeared in 1898. He was also an attorney and an amateur historian of Indiana and of the English Tudor period.
Uncle Tom Andy Bill: a story of bears and Indian treasure
Major, Charles
NY: Macmillan 1908
See the biographical note on Major at his other novel above.
“A book of lively, wholesome stories of adventure which Uncle Tom Andy Bill, seventy and reminiscent, selects from his boyhood experiences.” – Book Review Digest.
The World Destroyer
Mann, Horace, (pseud.)
Washington: Lucas-Lincoln 1903
The Man from Brodney’s – Famous Indiana Authors
McCutcheon, George Barr
NY: Dodd, Mead 1908
George Barr McCutcheon (1866-1928) was born in Tippecanoe County, IN. His father was a respected farmer who was given charge of the first farm opened by Purdue University. George attended Purdue briefly, but left to be a newspaperman in Lafayette. About 1901, with his career as a novelist well underway, he left the newspaper and Lafayette, moving to New York. He published many popular novels through the nineteen-teens and ‘twenties.
Quill’s Window
McCutcheon, George Barr
NY: Dodd, Mead 1921
“Quill’s Window is the name given by a certain Indiana country population to the opening of a cave high up on a rock, a site connected with many weird stories. It becomes the center of this story, which relates the villainies of an invalided rake, posing as an ex-service man while he is making love and seducing country girls and trying to secure the hand of a rich heiress. When his iniquities have found him out, the cave becomes his last refuge where he is hounded down and brought to bay by the brother of one of his victims.
Slag; A Story of Steel and Stocks
McGibeny, Donald
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1922
The Sand Doctor
Mulder, Arnold
Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1921
Thad Perkins: A Story of Early Indiana
Myers, Frank A.
London: Tennyson Neely 1899
A Hoosier Chronicle
Nicholson, Meredith
Houghton 1912
Study of political and social life in Indiana with a love story involving the mystery of the heroine’s parentage.” – NY state lib.
Meredith Nicholson (1866-1947) was born in Crawfordsville, IN, son of one of the more substantial farmers in his county. He moved with his family to Indianapolis in 1872, remaining there most of his life. As a young man he worked at local newspapers and also studied law. In the late ’90s he left newspaper work to serve as Treasurer for a mining corporation in Denver, returning to Indianapolis in about 1900. It was about that time that he began writing full-time, gradually becoming one of the best-known writers of his day.
House of a Thousand Candles – Free Novels Set in Indiana PDF
Nicholson, Meredith
Bobbs 1905
“Underground passages, a villain, a love affair, shooting and much mystery are associated with the ‘house of a thousand candles,’ in which a young globe-trotter must live a year in order to comply with his grandfather’s will.” -A.L.A.
The Siege of the Seven Suitors
Nicholson, Meredith
NY: Grosset & Dunlap 1910
The Hoosier Editor. A Tale of Indiana Life – Famous Indiana Authors
Perrow, George L.
Indianapolis: Tilford & Carlon 1877
The Conflict: A Novel
Phillips, David Graham
NY: Appleton 1911
David Graham Phillips (1867-1911) was born in Madison, IN, the son of a banker. After attending Madison’s public schools, David studied at Asbury College (now DePauw University), transferring to Princeton after two years. After graduation there he worked as a reporter in Cincinnati, earning a reputation as something of a phenomenon. In 1890 he sought greener pastures in New York, winding up on the editorial staff of Joseph Pulitzer’s “World” in just three years. In 1901 he published his first novel, “The Great God Success” to popular and critical acclaim. He soon gave up newspaper employment and earned his living with novels and free-lance articles for magazines, becoming known as a muckraker. He is considered by some critics to be one of America’s best novelists; by others simply a great journalist.
The Social Secretary
Phillips, David Graham
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1905
See the biographical note at his other entry above.
Tales of a Vanishing River
Reed, Earl H.
NY: Lane 1920
“The background of this collection of sketches and stories is the country through which flowed one of the most interesting of our western rivers before its destruction as a natural waterway. This book is not a history. It is intended as an interpretation of the life along the river that the author has come in contact with during many years of familiarity with the region.”
– from the author’s Foreword
Pipes O’Pan at Zekesbury
Riley, James Whitcomb
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1888
James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) was an Indiana writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the “Hoosier Poet” and “Children’s Poet” for his dialect works and his children’s poetry respectively. Pipes o’Pan at Zekesbury was his fourth novel, released to great critical acclaim. -Wikipedia entry for Riley.
Seth Way – Famous Indiana Authors
Snedeker, Caroline D.
Boston: Houghton 1917
Caroline Dale Snedeker (1871-1956) wrote primarily for young adults. Born in New Harmony, IN, she grew up in Vernon, IN and attended the College of Music in Cincinnati. After her marriage, the couple lived in New York. Seth Way was her third published novel. The setting is the utopian New Harmony settlement in Indiana in the 1840’s.
A story of the New Harmony community, Robert Owen’s experiment in communal living in Indiana. With a few exceptions the characters are real people.
The Rose of Love
Teal, Angeline
NY: Dodd, Mead 1903
Angeline Gruey Teal (1842-1913) was born on a farm in southern Ohio, and moved with her family to Noble County, IN at three. She attended rural schools and Miss Griggs’ Seminary at Wolcottville, IN. In 1866 she married a doctor in Kendallville, where she wrote poems, children’s stories and short stories for magazines for many years.
Alice of Old Vincennes
Thompson, Maurice
Indianapolis: Bowen Merrill 1900
A historical novel dealing with the life of the old Northwest in Revolutionary times.
James Maurice Thompson (1844-1901), son of a Baptist minister, was born in Fairfield, Indiana. The family moved to north Georgia in the 1850s and he was educated by tutors in the classical languages, literature, French and mathematics, which provided the basis for his later work as a civil engineer. During the Civil War Thompson served in the Confederate Army. After the war he lived in Calhoun, Georgia, studied surveying and engineering, and took up the study of law. He lived in Calhoun two years and began his career as a writer there.
A Banker of Bankersville: a Novel
Thompson, Maurice
NY: Cassell 1886
See the biographical note about the author at Alice of Old Vincennes, on this web page. This story is semi-autobiographical, about Crawfordsville, IN, where the author lived.
Hiram Blair – Free Novels Set in Indiana PDF
Tufts, Drew
Chicago: McClurg 1912