Jesse Lynch Williams (August 17, 1871 – September 14, 1929) was an American author and dramatist.

Williams was born in Sterling, Illinois, on August 17, 1871, to Elizabeth Brown (Riddle) and Rev.

Meade Creighton Williams,[1] pastor of a Presbyterian church in St. Louis, Missouri.

[2] His grandfather, also Jesse Lynch Williams, was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the government director of the roads.

He won the Nassau Literary Magazine short story contest in his junior year.

[3] Robert Frost wrote a recommendation to the University of Michigan regarding his suitability for the Fellowship of Creative Arts.

From 1900 to 1903, he was the editor of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, after which he worked full-time writing plays and novels.

He was a member of the Authors League of America, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and other organizations, in which he sometimes had a leadership role.

They had three children, Henry Meade, Jesse Lynch, and Laidlaw Onderdonk Williams.