James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1841–1925) was an American educator and author of school readers whose books, were at one time in the hands of half the schoolchildren in the United States. Born in Indiana and largely self-taught, he became a teacher at twenty-four, superintendent of schools in Huntington, Indiana, and then an editor for Harper and Brothers and the American Book Company. He wrote or edited more than fifty volumes, including Fifty Famous Stories Retold (1896), Thirty More Famous Stories Retold, Old Greek Stories, retelling history, legend and literature in plain prose for young readers. He is not to be confused with the twentieth-century novelist of the same name.