Upon the death of E. P. Roe, Publishers' Weekly noted that he was one of the most widely read authors of the 1870s and 1880s. The fact that more than five million copies of his novels were sold during the closing decades of the nineteenth century testifies to his acceptance by the public. Roe has not, however, been praised by literary critics. If he is mentioned at all in critical assessments of nineteenth-century fiction, he is relegated to the position of a third-rate hack who produced predictable, didactic narratives that feature the conversion of at least one individual to Christianity. Yet the popularity of E. P. Roe's fiction makes him a worthy subject for literary examination. His themes and situations spoke to American culture in the later nineteenth century. Particularly notable are Roe's use of native landscapes, his promotion of American ideals, and his treatment of natural disasters...