While Reid's novels have become almost completely forgotten in the Anglosphere, they have remained popular in Eastern Europe and particularly in Russia (ever since the Czar of Russia / House of Romanov imperial dynasty of the Russian Empire), being considered a part of the canon of Western literature and being published under the category of "World Classics" along with Jack London and James Fenimore Cooper.

His father wanted Reid to become a Presbyterian minister, and in September 1834 the youth enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.

Although Reid later claimed to have made several trips West in this period, on which he purportedly based some of his novels, the evidence for this is sketchy and confusing at best.

They camped for several weeks at Lobos Island before joining Major General Winfield Scott's invasion of Central Mexico, which began on 9 March at Vera Cruz.

Learning of the Bavarian Revolution, Reid headed for England to volunteer, but after the Atlantic crossing changed his mind and went home to Ireland instead.

The last, set in Texas and Louisiana, was a "juvenile scientific travelogue" that become a favourite with young Theodore Roosevelt, who became a Reid fan.

He spent money freely, including building in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, a sprawling "Rancho", a reproduction of a Mexican hacienda he had seen during the Mexican–American War, where he took to farming.

[4] Reid lectured at Steinway Hall in New York and published the novel The Helpless Hand in 1868, but his popularity had declined in America.

About this time Reid's creative energy began to flag and he lost popularity, so he turned to farming near Ross in Herefordshire.

His last novel, No Quarter, set in the Parliamentary wars, and his last boys' book, The Land of Fire, were published after his death on 22 October 1883.

For instance, Vladimir Nabokov recalled The Headless Horseman as a favourite adventure novel of his boyhood – "which had given him a vision of the prairies and the great open spaces and the overarching sky.

[8] Alexander Bek mentions the well-read K. K. Rokossovsky, future Marshal of the Soviet Union, referring to Reid's work in early 1942.

Anton Chekhov in Island, a Journey to Sakhalin (1893–94) mentions "Mayne Reid" in Chapter 10: "The morose, angry sea has spread itself boundlessly for thousands of versts.

The shy, asthmatic upper-class boy, Teddy Roosevelt, grew up to pursue naturalistic zoology and adventure travel.

Russell Miller, in his biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, credits Reid as one of the writer's favourite childhood authors and a great influence on his writings.

[1] Although Reid called himself and is listed often as Captain, Francis B. Heitman's definitive Historical Register and Dictionary of the U.S. Army shows he only reached the rank of lieutenant.