The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh and blood, and t mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath's finest bit of character drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack's chum. Harold MacGrath (September 4, 1871 - October 30, 1932) was a bestselling American velist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Also kwn occasionally as Harold McGrath, he was born in Syracuse, New York. As a young man, he worked as a reporter and columnist on the Syracuse Herald newspaper until the late 1890s when he published his first vel, a romance titled Arms and the Woman. According to the New York Times, his next book, The Puppet Crown, was the No.7 bestselling book in the United States for all of 1901. From that point on, MacGrath never looked back, writing vels for the mass market about love, adventure, mystery, spies, and the like at an average rate of more than one a year. He would have three more of his books that were among the top ten bestselling books of the year. At the same time, he penned a number of short stories for major American magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, and Red Book magazine. Several of MacGrath's vels were serialized in these magazines and contributing to them was something he would continue to do until his death in 1932.