Abraham Merritt Born in Beverly, New Jersey, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1894.Originally trained in law, he turned to journalism, first as a correspondent and later as editor. According to Peter Haining, Merritt survived a harrowing experience while a young reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer about which he refused to ever speak, but would, as Haining claims, mark a turning point in Merritt's life. He was assistant editor of The American Weekly from 1912 to 1937 under Morrill Goddard, then its editor from 1937 until his death. As editor, he hired the unheralded new artists Virgil Finlay and Hannes Bok and promoted the work done on polio by Sister Elizabeth Kenny. His fiction, eight complete novels and a number of short stories, was only a sideline to his journalism career. One of the best-paid journalist