Edward Eggleston was an American novelist and historian best known for The Hoosier Schoolmaster. His fiction draws on the communities, speech, and everyday struggles of nineteenth-century Indiana. With a strong interest in ordinary people, he made schoolrooms, rural households, and religious life the settings for stories that also preserve a record of regional culture.

Educated largely in Indiana's country schools, Eggleston became a Methodist minister and served congregations in Indiana and Minnesota. He later worked as an editor, including a period at the Independent. These experiences gave him close contact with the social worlds that informed his fiction, particularly the teachers, preachers, and families of developing communities.

In later life, Eggleston devoted increasing attention to history and wrote books for both schools and general readers. The Beginners of a Nation and The Transit of Civilization examined the formation of early American society. He also served as president of the American Historical Association. His novels, including The Circuit Rider, and his historical studies share an interest in how beliefs, customs, and everyday circumstances shape a people's life.