Eva March Tappan was a teacher and American author born in Blackstone, Massachusetts, the only child of Reverend Edmund March Tappan and Lucretia Logée. Eva graduated from Vassar College in 1875. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and an editor of the Vassar Miscellany. After leaving Vassar she began teaching at Wheaton College where she taught Latin and German from 1875 until 1880. From 1884–94 she was the Associate Principal at the Raymond Academy in Camden, New Jersey. She received graduate degrees in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Tappan was the head of the English department at the English High School at Worcester, Massachusetts. She began her literary career writing about famous characters in history and developed an interest in writing children books. Tappan never married.