Reid

Reid, CAPTAIN MAYNE, writer of boys' stories, was born in County Down in 1818, and at twenty emigrated to America, where he led a roving and adventurous life, served in the United States army during the Mexican war of 1847, and distinguished himself especially in the storm of Chapultepec. The Hungarian struggle, in which he had meant to take part, was at an end before he reached Europe, whereupon he settled down to a literary life, first at London, next in Buckinghamshire. He died October 22, 1883. His vigorous style and the profusion of hairbreadth escapes he provided delighted his breathless readers, who did not stop to notice the truthfulness of his scenery and the occasional excellence of the narrative style. Among his best books were the Boy Hunter (1853), the Bush Boys (1856), and the Boy Tar (1859), the Scalp Hunters (1851), the Rifle Rangers (1850), the War Trail (1857), and the Headless Horseman (1866). See his Life and Adventures by his widow (1900; expanded from an 1890 memoir).