Charles Egbert Craddock

The Despot of Broomsedge Charles Egbert Craddock

Mary Noailles Murfree (1850-1922) was an American fiction writer of novels and short stories who wrote under the pen name Charles Egbert Craddock. She has been favorably compared to Bret Harte and Sarah Orne Jewett, creating post-Civil War American local-color literature. She is considered by many to be Appalachia's first significant female writer and her work a necessity for the study of Appalachian literature.