Frank R. Stockton

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.

Life

Stockton was born in Philadelphia in 1834, the son of a prominent Methodist minister who discouraged him from a writing career. For years, he supported himself as a wood engraver until his father's death in 1860. Before his fathers death, he married Mary Ann Edwards Tuttle and moved to Burlington, New Jersey, where he produced his first literary work. The couple then moved to Nutley, New Jersey.

In 1867, he moved back to Philadelphia to write for a newspaper founded by his brother. His first fairy tale was "Ting-a-ling", 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. Around 1899, he moved to Charles Town, West Virginia.

Stockton died in Washington, D.C. on April 20, 1902 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried at The Woodlands in Philadelphia.

Writings

Stockton avoided the didactic moralizing common to children's stories of the time. Instead, he humorously poked fun at greed, violence, abuse of power, and other human foibles, describing his fantastic characters' adventures in a charming, matter-of-fact way in stories such as "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" (1885) and "The Bee-Man of Orn" (1887). These two stories were republished in 1963 and 1964 in editions illustrated by Maurice Sendak. "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" won a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1963.