Rudder Grange (1879). By

One evening Euphemia and I were sitting, rather disconsolately, in our room, and I was reading out the advertisements of country board in a newspaper, searching for a home, when in rushed Dr. Heare -- one of our old friends. He was so full of something that he had to say that he didn't even ask us how we were. In fact, he didn't appear to want to know. "I tell you what it is, .... Frank Richard Stockton (April 5, 1834 - April 20, 1902) was an American writer and humorist, 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 the year 1834, Stockton was the son of a prominent Methodist minister who discouraged him from a writing career. After he married Mary Ann Edwards Tuttle, they 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. He died in 1902 of cerebral hemorrhage and is buried at The Woodlands in Philadelphia.