# Elbridge Streeter Brooks

Elbridge Streeter Brooks (April 14, 1846 – January 7, 1902) was an American author, editor, and critic. He is chiefly remembered as an author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction for children, much of it on historical or patriotic subjects. His byline for most of his writing was Elbridge S. Brooks.

## Life and family

Brooks was born on April 14, 1846, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of Universalist minister Elbridge Gerry Brooks and Martha Fowle (Monroe) Brooks. He was raised in Bath, Maine, Lynn, Massachusetts and New York City, where his father served in various churches. He was educated in the public schools of Lynn and New York and entered the Free Academy (later the College of the City of New York) in 1861, which he left during his junior year to seek work. Later, in 1887, he received an A.M. degree from Tufts College. As an adult he lived in Philadelphia and New York City until removing to Somerville, Massachusetts, his mother's home town, in 1887. He married, in 1870, Hannah-Melissa Debaun of New York. They had two daughters, Geraldine and Christine Brooks. Geraldine would also become an author, revising some of her father's works for new editions as well as writing her own works. Brooks died January 7, 1902, in Somerville and interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and daughters, though the younger, Christine, died the next year.

## Career

Brooks took a job as a clerk with the publishing house of D. Appleton & Company in 1865, and continued working professionally for various publishers and magazines for the remainder of his life. He was employed by Ford & Company, Sheldon & Company and Henry Holt & Company in the early 1870s before joining E. Steiger & Company in 1876 as head of its English educational and subscription department. He went on to become a member of the staff of Publishers Weekly in 1879, literary editor and dramatic critic for the Brooklyn Daily Times from 1883–1885, associate editor of St. Nicholas Magazine from 1884–1887, and an editor for D. Lothrop & Company from 1887 through his death, aside from the period of 1892-1895, when the firm went through financial difficulties and reorganization. He edited the series The Story of the States for Lothrop. He was also editor of Wide Awake from 1891-1893.
Brooks started writing fiction, poetry and plays for children in 1879, his work appearing in St. Nicholas, Wide Awake, Harper's Young People, Golden Days, and The Independent. Much of this material was afterwards collected into book form, published by D. Lothrop and others. Brooks ultimately penned nearly seventy book-length works, mostly drawn from history, and American history in particular; a number of these, however, were revisions or expansions of earlier works issued under new titles. Some of his patriotic works were issued under the auspices of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Brooks also wrote some material for adult audiences, including one of his earliest books, a biography of his own father.
He was a member of the Authors' Club of New York.

## Reception

Brooks' works were dismissed by some critics as "machine-made," but proved enduringly popular, some continuing to be reprinted many years after his death.