Edward Page Mitchell (1852–1927) was an American editorial and short story writer for The Sun, a daily newspaper in New York City.
While living there, as a boy of fourteen, young Mitchell's letters to The Bath Times (his birthplace's local paper) were his first published writing.
On a train journey from Bowdoin College to Bath, Maine, a hot cinder from the engine's smokestack flew in through the window and struck Mitchell's left eye, blinding it.
Mitchell first became a professional journalist at the Daily Advertiser in Boston, Massachusetts, where his mentor was Edward Everett Hale, now also recognized as an early author of science fiction.
Fiction published as fact, this purported to be the true account of a recently deceased resident of Maine returning as a ghost.
Many of Mitchell's fictions—published originally as factual newspaper articles—deal with ghosts or other supernatural events, and would now be considered works of fantasy rather than science fiction.
During the early years of Mitchell's tenure at the Sun, they lived in an apartment on Madison Avenue, where the marriage produced two sons.
One of Mitchell's colleagues at the Sun was that paper's night editor Garrett P. Serviss, who would also become an important figure in early science fiction.
[11] Mitchell was a longtime resident of Glen Ridge, New Jersey[12] and is credited with founding the community:[13] he moved to this region when it was comparatively unpopulated, and his local influence led others to build houses there.