Bio:Margaret Horton Potter

Margaret Horton Potter (1881-1911) was the daughter of a steel manufacturer (Orrin Potter) and a "member of society" in Chicago. Her first novel, written when she was 17, was apparently too closely modeled after real persons and was suppressed. In 1902 she married John Donald Black. She wrote 9 novels under her maiden name between 1899 and 1908, primarily romance and society novels, and one historical fantasy novel, "Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy". Starting in 1910, her life went downhill. On May 5 that year, she was declared legally insane and committed to a sanitarium. Although later released, an executor was appointed for her estate. Her husband filed for divorce in October, 1910 on the grounds of habitual drunkenness. On Dec. 22 the next year, she died of a morphine overdose. Witnesses said she had been an habitual user of drugs, although friends insisted she had been using morphine to relieve suffering from a heart ailment.

New York Times, May 6, 1910.

New York Times, Oct. 6, 1910.

New York Times, Dec. 23, 1911.