Valerie Martin (née Metcalf; born March 14, 1948)[1] is an American novelist and short story writer.

Her 1990 novel, Mary Reilly, a retelling of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the point of view of a servant in the doctor's house, won the Kafka Prize in 1990 and has been translated into 16 languages.

[5] It was released as a film in 1996 by Columbia TriStar Pictures, directed by Stephen Frears and starred John Malkovich as Dr. Jekyll and Julia Roberts as Mary.

[10] With her niece, poet Lisa Martin, she has written a trilogy of children's books about cats named Anton and Cecil.

[11] Her historical fiction novel The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, was published in 2014, and Sea Lovers: Selected Stories appeared in 2016.

[3] Martin has continued to teach at the college level even though her writing career has been successful, sometimes taking breaks from the classroom in order to complete a work.