Joseph Alexander Altsheler (April 29, 1862 - June 5, 1919) was an American newspaper reporter, editor and author of popular juvenile historical fiction. He was a prolific writer, and produced fifty novels and at least fifty-three short stories. Altsheler was born in Three Springs, Hart County, Kentucky, to Joseph and Louise (nee Snoddy) Altsheler. He attended Liberty College in Glasgow, Kentucky, before entering Vanderbilt University. In 1885, he took a job at the Louisville Courier-Journal as a reporter and later worked as an editor. He started working for the New York World in 1892, first as the paper's Hawaiian correspondent and then as the editor of the World's tri-weekly magazine. Due to a lack of suitable stories, he began writing children's stories for the magazine.