Irene Temple Bailey (1869–1953) was an exceptionally popular American novelist and short story writer during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in 1869, she began her literary career around 1902 by contributing short fiction to prominent national magazines. Her stories regularly appeared in widely read publications of the era, including The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, McClure's, Good Housekeeping, and Woman's Home Companion, establishing her as a household name among American readers.
Bailey's commercial success peaked during the 1910s and 1920s. She achieved significant recognition when three of her books reached the annual lists of bestselling novels in the United States in 1918, 1922, and 1926. Beyond her prose fiction, Bailey also ventured into the film industry; in 1914, she wrote the screenplay for the Vitagraph Studios film Auntie, and two of her novels were later adapted for the screen.
Known as one of the best-paid writers of her generation, Bailey commanded extraordinary sums for her work. Cosmopolitan magazine famously paid her $325,000 for a package of three serialized novels and a collection of short stories. Over her lifetime, her novels sold an estimated three million copies. Bailey, who never married, spent her later years in Washington, D.C., where she passed away in 1953.
