Reid, Van ( - )

Genre: General Fiction

Reid's family has lived in Edgecomb since the 1800s. He and his wife live with their two children in a house he and his brother built on his family's land.

Reid did not attend college, preferring to develop his own style, but he has worked many jobs, including carpet layer, hospital orderly, theater reviewer and book columnist, and since 1990 has worked at the Maine Coast Book Shop. Reid also performs in local theater.

Reid's books are a series taking place in the late 1800s in coastal Maine. They have been described as having 'lemonade-at-the-fair' freshness; his vivid characters and humour have been compared with John Irving's; and the books are admittedly influenced by Dickens's The Pickwick Papers.

His first book, Cordelia Underwood or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League (1998) was first serialized in the Lincoln County Weekly newspaper, from 1995-1997, and was quickly picked up by Penguin Putnam, who offered him a contract for a series of three books, which the editors thought would appeal to readers looking for 'gentle fiction.'

Selected Bibliography

• Mollie Peer or The Underground Adventures of the Moosepath League (1999)
• Daniel Plainway or the Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League (2000)
• Mrs. Roberto or the Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League, (2003)
• Fiddler's Green (2004)
• Peter Loon: A Novel (2002)
• Moss Farm, or, The Mysterious Missives of the Mossepath League (September 24-30, 1896) (2012)