Ambrose Bierce was born on June 24, 1842 in Meigs county, Ohio. He worked as a printer's apprentice and enlisted to fight in the Civil War. After the war he worked as an editor, journalist, and short story writer; capturing his war experiences in vivid detail. In 1913 he went to Mexico, then in the midst of a revolution led by Pancho Villa. He disappeared sometime in 1914. Stephen Crane, born in New Jersey on November 1, 1871, produced works that have been credited with establishing the foundations of modern American naturalism. His Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895) realistically depicts the psychological complexities of battlefield emotion and has become a literary classic. He is also known for authoring Maggie: A Girl of the Streets . He died at the age of 28 on June 5, 1900 in Germany. Born on April 15, 1843, in New York City, Henry James became one of his generation's most well-known writers and remains so to this day for such works as The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw. Having lived in England for 40 years, James became a British subject in 1915, the year before his death. He died on February 28, 1916, in London, England. Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850 August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is now considered by some scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. William Dean Howells, (born March 1, 1837, Martins Ferry, Ohio, U.S.died May 11, 1920, New York City), U.S. novelist and critic, the dean of late 19th-century American letters, the champion of literary realism, and the close friend and adviser of Mark Twain and Henry James Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were family friends. Alcott wrote under various pseudonyms and only started using her own name when she was ready to commit to writing. Her novel Little Women gave Louisa May Alcott financial independence and a lifetime writing career. She died in 1888. Willa Cather, (born December 7, 1873, near Winchester, Virginia, U.S.died April 24, 1947, New York City, New York), American novelist noted for her portrayals of the settlers and frontier life on the American plains. Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922) was a lawyer and writer from one of the foremost plantation families of Virginia that lost most of its wealth and prominence after the American Civil War.
