John Fox was an American journalist, short story writer and novelist. Fox was born in Kentucky, educated at Harvard, and became a journalist in New York. A Mountain Europa was his first novel serialized in Century Magazine. Many of his works are in a naturalist style while others are dramas or historical romances. A Cumberland Vendetta is set in the rural mountain area of Kentucky. This action story grasps the strong character the mountain people. The story begins "The cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons."