Helen Topping Miller (1884–1960)

Helen Topping Miller was born in Fenton, Michigan. She began writing as a child and published a story in St. Nicholas Magazine at age 15. After graduating in 1905 from Michigan Agricultural College (later Michigan State University), she taught school for two years. In 1910, she married Frank Roger Miller, a journalist with whom she had two children, and taught for a time at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She contributed short stories, serialized novels, and poems to several national magazines. Her first book, Sharon (1931), achieved modest success. During her literary career, she published more than 40 books and more than 300 short stories.

Beginning in the mid-1940s, she varied her usual light romances with historical fiction. These included Dark Sails: A Tale of Old St. Simons (1945), The Sound of Chariots: A Novel of John Sevier and the State of Franklin (1947) and Rebellion Road: A Civil War Novel (1954). She also produced a successful series of stories of Christmas at the homes of famous Southern men. She was a member of the Authors League of America, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Tennessee Press Writers Club.