George Barr McCutcheon was an American popular novelist and playwright. McCutcheon was born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Despite having no formal education himself, his father emphasized the importance of literature and urged his sons to write. During McCutcheon's childhood, his father had a number of jobs that required travel around the county. McCutcheon studied at Purdue University and was a roommate of future humourist George Ade. During his college years, he was editor of the newspaper Lafayette Daily Courier and wrote a serial novel of satire about Wabash River life. His best-known works include the series of novels set in Graustark, a fictional East European country, and the novel Brewster's Millions, which was adapted into a play and over seven film versions including a Hindi version Malamaal. Like Hope's novels, which gave their name to a fictional genre called the Ruritanian romance based on The Prisoner of Zenda, McCutcheon's novels created a sub-genre called 'Graustarkian'.