John Fox Jr. was an American journalist, novelist, and short story writer. Fox was born in Stony Point, Kentucky, to John William Fox Sr. and Minerva Worth Carr. He attended Harvard University to study English. He graduated in 1883 and then worked as a reporter in New York City. After working for the New York Times and the New York Sun, he successfully serialized his first novel, A Mountain Europa, in Century magazine in 1892. Two modestly successful short story collections followed, as did his first conventional book, The Kentuckians, published in 1898. Fox rose to prominence as a combat correspondent, writing for Harper's Weekly in Cuba during the Spanish-American combat of 1898, where he served with the "rough Riders." Fox wrote for journals on occasion, but after 1904, he focused primarily on fiction. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (published in 1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (released in 1908) are among his most well-known and successful works, appearing on the New York Times' top ten list of bestselling novels in 1903, 1904, 1908, and 1909. Devil Judd Tolliver, the character in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, is based on the real-life sheriff of Wise County, Virginia, "Devil John" Wesley Wright. Many of his paintings reflected his naturalist approach, his upbringing in Kentucky's Bluegrass region, and his experiences among coal miners in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.
