Maurice Thompson

Maurice Thompson (1844–1901) was an American poet, novelist, and naturalist closely associated with Indiana. Born in Fairfield, Indiana, he spent much of his youth in the South before returning to Indiana, experiences that informed his writing about regional history and landscape. He gained recognition for poetry that celebrated outdoor life and the natural world, including *Songs of Fair Weather* (1895). Thompson also wrote popular historical fiction; his best-known novel, *Alice of Old Vincennes* (1900), is set in the Indiana frontier and draws on the area’s early past. He contributed essays and verse to periodicals and remained a prominent Midwestern literary voice.