Born in Norwood Park (now part of Chicago), Illinois, on September 27, 1874, Myrtle Reed was of a religious and literary family. Her parents╒ ambition that she be a writer began to bear fruit when she was ten and the Acorn, a juvenile periodical, published a story of hers. After graduating from high school in 1893 she became a free-lance journalist. Her poems, sketches, and stories began appearing regularly in such periodicals as the Bookman, Munsey╒s Magazine, and the National Magazine, and in 1899 she published her first novel, Love Letters of a Musician. The popularity of that book led to Later Love Letters of a Musician, 1900, which was followed by The Spinster Book, 1901, a collection of essays on romantic love and courtship. Lavender and Old Lace, 1902, essentially a daydream translated into a romantic novel, was a huge success; it ran through 40 printings in the next 9 years. In that time she turned out Pickaback Songs, 1903, The Shadow of Victory: A Romance of Fort Dearborn, 1903, The Master╒s Violin, 1904, The Book of Clever Beasts, 1904, At the Sign of the Jack o╒Lantern, 1905, A Spinner in the Sun, 1906, Love Affairs of Literary Men, 1907, Flower of the Dusk, 1908, Old Rose and Silver, 1909, Sonnets of a Lover, 1910, and Master of the Vineyard, 1910, books that typically appeared in lavender casings decorated with elaborate and delicate art nouveau designs.
Reed╒s books of what in the taste of the day was received as sweet and tender sentiment were all greatly popular. The success of What to Have for Breakfast, a cookbook issued in 1905 under the pseudonym Olive Green, led to nine more such books, and she also published numerous articles on domestic matters under the name Katherine LaFarge Norton. In October 1906 she married James S. McCullough, an Irish-Canadian businessman whom she had corresponded with since high school. Her romantic notions of perfection in husband, wife, and home became more and more real to her as reality fell short of them in detail after detail. The somber note that began to creep into her later books became more pronounced as it reflected her own increasing depression. She became habituated to a sedative, and on August 17, 1911, she ended her life with an overdose. Several books were then in press and appeared posthumously: Weaver of Dreams, 1911, The Myrtle Reed Year Book, 1911, White Shield, 1912, and Happy Women, 1913.
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