Hamlin Hannibal Garland (born September 14, 1860 in West Salem, Wisconsin; died March 4, 1940 in Hollywood, California) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short-story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.

Biography

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Born into a Wisconsin farm family, he lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but he settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884, to pursue a career in writing. His first success came in 1891 with Main-Traveled Roads, a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of Ulysses S. Grant in McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898). In 1898 Garland travelled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired him to write The Trail of the Gold Seekers in 1899.

A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short story collections, essays, and short fiction for numerous publications. In 1917, Garland published his autobiography based on his own life and his family, as well as the American Midwest, titled A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary.

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