Margaret Cameron (writer)

Margaret Cameron (after first marriage, Lewis; after second marriage, Kilvert; December 21, 1867 – February 4, 1947) was an American musician and writer. Most of Cameron's writing was humorous. May Lamberton Becker, outlining in the New York Evening Post a course of study in American humor, mentioned Margaret Cameron as one of the three women humorists thus far produced by this country. Cameron wrote several one-act plays for amateurs, all in a vein of light, satirical comedy; many short stories, summarized by one critic as “delicious bits of fooling, developed with an absurd solemnity that is captivating”; two books of travel in actionized form, one of which, The Involuntary Chaperon, was considered to be the first South American travel book published in the U.S.; and a novel, Johndover, in which was presented a image of Santa Barbara, California during the last years of a romantic period. The Seven Purposes was the first book written in the U.S. concerning psychic phenomena to have a large circulation.