Maurice Francis Egan (May 24, 1852 – January 15, 1924) was an American writer and diplomat. He was a prolific writer and had a long and successful career as a Catholic journalist, literary critic, and novelist. He was a professor of English at two universities, and served as United States Minister in Copenhagen.
Life and career
Egan's father was an immigrant from County Tipperary, Ireland who became a successful industrialist. His mother was from Philadelphia. Egan was born in Philadelphia in 1852. He received his secondary education from Brothers of the Christian Schools (FSC) at the newly opened LaSalle College. He did graduate work in journalism at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Egan returned to Philadelphia in 1877. His father urged him to pursue a career in law, but Egan instead began to contribute to The Saturday Evening Post magazine. His first novel That Girl of Mine, an implausible romance set in Washington, D.C. society, was published in 1877. Egan wrote the novel in two weeks for a pulp romance series. It was successful, and Egan wrote a sequel titled That Lover of Mine for the same series in 1877.
Egan moved to New York in 1878. He used the network of Catholic publications to further his career, first becoming an editor at the Catholic journal Magee's Weekly. He then moved to the Illustrated Catholic American, and later to P. V. Hickey's Catholic Review. He became associate editor of the Freeman's Journal in 1881. He wrote essays, poems, reviews, and short fiction throughout the 1880s. Egan had become a respected Catholic writer by the 1890s. The 1890s was his most productive decade as a writer.
