Frances Little (
November 22,
1863 -
January 6,
1941) is the psuedonym of
American author Fannie Caldwell. Caldwell and her husband, businessman J.D. Macaulay, made their home on Fourth Street in
Louisville, Kentucky. Her debut book ''
The Lady of the Decoration'' was published in
New York City in 1906 and would be her most successful work. The book, set between 1901 and 1905, is the diary as a young
missionary kindergarten teacher in
Hiroshima,
Japan who will travel to
Vladivostock,
Russia as a consequence of the
Russo-Japanese War. At the dawn of the 20th Century, most Americans knew very little of Japan and Frances Little's book presented a view of Japanese life at the time that captured the imagaination of the reading public who made it the
No.1 bestselling novels in the United States for all of 1907.
Frances Little died in 1941 and was buried in the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. In December of 2005, the
Project Gutenberg published "''Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God, A Christmas Story''" under her own married name of Fannie C. Macaulay.
According to the dedication in "Little Sister Snow", Little was the aunt of the author
Alice Hegan Rice.