Eleanor H. Porter wrote mainly children's literature, adventure stories, and romance fiction. Her most famous novel is "Pollyanna" (1913), followed by a sequel, "Pollyanna Grows Up" (1915). Her adult novels include "The Turn of the Tide" (1908), "The Road to Understanding" (1917), "Oh Money! Money!" (1918), "Dawn" (1919), "Keith's Dark Tower" (1919), "Mary Marie" (1920) and "Sister Sue" (1921); her short-story collections include "Across the Years" (c. 1919), "Money, Love and Kate" (1923), and "Little Pardner" (1926). Porter achieved considerable commercial success: "Pollyanna" ranked eighth among best-selling novels in the United States during 1913, second during 1914, and fourth during 1915 (with 47
Gene Stratton-Porter while she supervised construction of her home at Sylvan Lake in Noble County, Indiana, and she described it as her most autobiographical novel. The narrative is told in the first person by the twelfth child of the "Stanton" family. The title character is modeled after Stratton-Porter's deceased older brother, Leander, whom Stratton-Porter nicknamed Laddie. As in Stratton-Porter's own family, Laddie is connected with the land and identifies with their father's vocation of farming. "Michael O'Halloran" (1915), her seventh novel, was inspired by a newsboy she had encountered at Philadelphia, while visiting her daughter, Jeannette, and her family. "A Daughter of