Peter Rugg

Austin, writing under the pseudonym "Jonathan Dunwell", wrote the tale "Peter Rugg: The Missing Man" in an epistolary style that suggested reportage.

[2][3] In an epilogue to the original story, also written by "Dunwell", Rugg finally arrives home after nearly 60 years, only to find that his wife has died, his old mansion has been torn down, and the site has been auctioned off for building lots.

In the letter Austin said that he first encountered the wanderer in 1826 when he was taking a coach out of Boston ..."[5] The story is said to have had a profound effect on the young Nathaniel Hawthorne when he was a student at Bowdoin.

Amy Lowell published her prose-poem ballad "Before the Storm: the Legend of Peter Rugg" in North American Review (September 1917).

[3] According to Alexander Woollcott, Rudyard Kipling and his English publisher A.S. Frere-Reeves were largely responsible for rediscovering Austin and publicizing the origins of the Peter Rugg tale.