Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 – June 10, 1909) was an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister, best known for his writings such as "The Man Without a Country", published in Atlantic Monthly, in support of the Union during the Civil War.

They were taught that there is nothing of which it is not capable... For such reasons, and many more, the young New Englanders of liberal training rushed into life, certain that the next half century was to see a complete moral revolution in the world.

[3] As in some of his other non-romantic tales, he employed a minute realism which led his readers to suppose the narrative a record of fact.

These two stories and such others as "The Rag-Man and the Rag-Woman" and "The Skeleton in the Closet", gave him a prominent position among short-story writers of 19th century America.

[9] In recognition of his support for the Union during the American Civil War, Hale was elected as a Third Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

The letters, donated to the library in 1969, had held their secrets until 2006 when Day realized that the intimate passages were written in Towndrow's shorthand.

[2] Throughout his life he contributed many articles on a variety of subjects to the periodicals of his day including the North American Review, the Atlantic Monthly, the Christian Register, the Outlook, and many more.

[5] On November 20, 1891, Hale founded the Ten Times One Corporation to implement the ideas laid out in the original story.

Bostonians asked him to help ring in the new century on December 31, 1900, by presenting a psalm on the balcony of the Massachusetts State House.

[19]Combining a forceful personality, organizing genius, and liberal practical theology, Hale was active in raising the tone of American life for half a century.

He used his writings and the two magazines he founded, Old and New (1870–75) and Lend a Hand (1886–97), to advance a number of social reforms, including religious tolerance, the abolition of slavery and wider education.

[20] Hale supported Irish immigration in the mid-19th century, as he felt the new workers freed Americans from performing menial, hard labor.

In a series of letters in the Boston Daily Advertiser, he noted the "inferiority" of immigrants: "[it] compels them to go the bottom; and the consequence is that we are, all of us, the higher lifted.

"[21] Edward Everett Hale's story "The Man Without a Country" (1863) opened with the sentence: "I was stranded at the old Mission House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come."