Stockton, Frank R. (Francis Richard Stockton) (1834–1902),Philadelphia novelist and short‐story writer, was first known as an author of children's stories, some of which were contributed to
St. Nicholas, of which he was an editor (1873–81). His juvenile stories are collected in
Ting‐a‐Ling (1870),
The Floating Prince and Other Fairy Tales (1881), and
The Bee Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales (1887). After the publication of his whimsically fantastic novel
Rudder Grange (1879), he began to write for adults, although continuing the same use of absurd situations that had made his juvenile tales popular. His chief books, after
Rudder Grange, were the volume of short stories (1884) whose title piece was the sensationally popular “
The Lady or the Tiger?” and the amusing novel
The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine (1886), and its sequel
The Dusantes (1888). The public also clamored for sequels to his first novel, which he furnished in
The Rudder Grangers Abroad (1891) and
Pomona's Travels (1894). His lively fancy continued to create many other tales and novels, but in later life took a somewhat different direction in such works as
The Great War Syndicate (1889),
The Great Stone of Sardis (1898), and
A Vizier of the Two Horned Alexander (1899), which are sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously, concerned with pseudo‐scientific matters. The comic
Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coast (1898) indicates another interest, continued in
Kate Bonnet (1902), a satirical novel of 17th‐century piracy, ridiculing conventional romances on the subject. During the last three years of his life, Stockton lived in West Virginia, which he had already known and described in his novels
The Late Mrs. Null (1886) and
Ardis Claverden (1890). A collected edition of his fiction was published (23 vols., 1899–1904).
