George C. Kelly, newspaper man and writer of novelettes under the pen name "Harold Payne," was born in Ireland in 1849⁽¹⁾ and died in Brooklyn, New York, July 24, 1895. He lived in New York, where he had a wife, one son and two daughters, but kept a room at 136 Concord Street, Brooklyn, so that he could work undisturbed and in quiet. The newspapers announcing his death had little to say about him except that he jumped or fell into Prospect Park Lake, Brooklyn, after having slashed his throat. Kelly had written many novelettes, but also had had a number of his books appear in cloth binding. "The Gilded Fly" had been published in St. Paul in 1892. "The Meredith Marriage," published by Dillingham, had appeared less than two weeks before his death, and "Queen of Finesse" came out not long before.

REFERENCES: Journalist, XVI, October 29, 1892, 13, reviews I "The Gilded Fly"; Brooklyn City Directories, 1893 and 1894; New York. City Directory, 1890-91; Banner Weekly, No. 671, October 21, 1893, 4; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 24, 1895, 1; New York Sun, July 25, 1895, 1; New York. Herald, July 25, 1895, 1, 4; Publishers' Weekly, XLVIII, July 27, 1895, 147; American Newsman, XII, August, 1895, 16 (gives his pen-name, incorrectly, as "Howard Payne"); Greenwood Cemetery Records.

Under the name "Harold Payne" Kelly wrote the following stories for Beadle:

Banner Weekly. Nos. 600, 670
Dime Library. Nos. 680, 690, 698, 706, 713, 728, 734, 742, 784, 792, 798, 806, 813, 821, 829, 836, 844, 853, 861, 872, 883, 1012
Half-Dime Library. Nos. 843, 892, 911, 952, 984, 1028

Notes

1	Publishers' Weekly gave his age as "about 37 years," but the Greenwood Cemetery records show that he was born in 1849.