Thomas Mayne Reid was an Irish-American author who lived from April 4, 1818, to October 22, 1883. He fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Through his many writings about American life, he has shown how the American states were run, how horrible it was to work as a slave, and how American Indians lived. Adventure books like those by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson were written by "Captain" Reid. Most of the stories took place in the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. He thought a lot of Lord Byron. His anti-slavery book Quadroon (1856) was turned into a play by Dion Boucicault called The Octoroon (1859), which was put on in New York. Robert Reid was born in the village of Ballyroney, which is near Katesbridge in County Down in Northern Ireland. He is the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who is a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and his wife. Reid set out to become a Presbyterian priest because his father wanted him to. In September 1834, he started at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He stayed for four years, but he wasn't motivated to finish school and get his diploma. He taught at a school in Ballyroney after going back to Dublin.