Raymond Macdonald Alden

Raymond Macdonald Alden (March 30, 1873 – September 27, 1924) was an American scholar and educator.

Biography Alden was born on March 30, 1873, in New Hartford, New York. His parents were the writer Isabella Macdonald Alden and Reverend Gustavus Rossenberg Alden. He studied at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1894 with a Ph.D.

He edited several plays of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists and in 1910 an edition of Thoreau's Walden. Alden also became known as a contributor to educational journals and short stories to magazines. In 1905, his story "In the Promised Land" won a $1,000 prize for third place in a Collier's Weekly contest. In 1913 he edited an edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint.

He is best remembered today for his published children's stories, most notably the Christmas story Why the Chimes Rang, which remained in illustrated print for over five decades and was widely performed as a theater production.

Raymond Macdonald Alden died in Philadelphia on September 27, 1924.

Raymond had sons, one of whom was Raymond Macdonald Alden Jr. who was born in Palo Alto California on November 17, 1921. His son graduated from Stanford, where his father had taught, with a degree in engineering and was an executive in the telephone industry.