John Luther Long

Who was John Luther Long?

John Luther Long was an American lawyer and writer best known for his short story "Madame Butterfly", which was based on the recollections of his sister, Jennie Correll, who had been to Japan with her husband—a Methodist missionary.

Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Long had been admitted to the bar in Philadelphia on October 29, 1881, and become a practicing lawyer. On January 17, 1882, he married Mary Jane Sprenkle. He died at age 66 on October 31, 1927 having spent the last two months of his life at a sanatorium in Clifton Springs, New York. The obituary in The New York Times of November 1, 1927 quoted his own interpretation of himself as "a sentimentalist, and a feminist and proud of it".

His one act play Dolce was staged at the Manhattan Theater on April 24, 1906, starring Minnie Maddern Fiske.