MAY AGNES FLEMING was born in Saint John in 1840 to Irish immigrants. Fleming was educated in her early years at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Saint John, where she began writing at the age of thirteen. In 1856 at age seventeen she became the first teacher at Saint Johnâ??s Roman Catholic school, until her writing became too demanding and she gave up teaching to become a full-time novelist, ultimately moving to New York. She became one of the most popular and successful novelists publishing in the United States in the 1870s and was the author of 47 novels and numerous short stories.