Louis Bromfield, born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1896, was a prolific American journalist, essayist, novelist, playwright, music critic and conservationist. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for his novel Early Autumn. His other novels include The Green Bay Tree, The Rains Came, Mrs Parkington and The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg. In his later years, he devoted himself to pioneering innovative scientific farming concepts. He died in 1956.