Hulbert Footner

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Hulbert Footner (1879-1944) was a Canadian writer of non-fiction and detective fiction.

Born William Hulbert Footner in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, he traveled to New York in 1898. In the United States, he attempted an acting career, which he eventually gave up on.

His first published works were travelogues of canoe trips on the Hudson River and in the Northwest Territory along the Peace River, Hay River and Fraser River. He also wrote a series of northwest adventures during the period 1911 through 1920, including The Sealed Valley (1914) and The Fur Bringers (1920)

About 1920 Footner began to write detective fiction.

His first series detective character was Madame Rosika Storey

Footner's other series detective is Amos Lee Mappin, a successful, middle aged mystery writer whose crimes tend to occur in New York's cafe society. Mappin is unusual in that his "Watson" (at least in some of his tales) is a young woman, his secretary Fanny Parran. She is one of the few female "Watsons" in fiction, an example of how female-oriented Footner's fiction is.

[edit] Bibliography - Non - Fiction

Two for the Trail - Doubleday & Co, New York, 1911
New Rivers of the North - Outing Publishing Company; New York; 1912
Rivers of the Eastern Shore - Farrar & Rinehart; New York, 1944 (Part of the Rivers of America Series)