Henry Milner Rideout (1877-1927) was a native of Calais, Maine. Author of sixteen novels, twenty-three short stories and novellas, and a biographical memoir, he also was editor of one college textbook, as well as co-editor of three others. Many of his stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.Rideout's father, a miller and road contractor, died when Rideout was twelve. Rideout's elder brother, who managed a bank in California, became the support of the family. At school, Rideout's ability caught the attention of his English teacher, Laura Burns, who was a cousin of the distinguished Harvard professor of English, Charles Townsend Copeland. She and Copeland motivated a group of Calais townspeople to lend Rideout the wherewithal to enter Harvard in 1895, where he was the first in his family to attend college.