Book excerpt: The Rose of Old St. Louis (published in 1904, written by Mary Dillon) is a historical, fictional novel, based on the founding of St. Louis, Missouri. It chronicles a boy who is first coming to St. Louis and his adventures there. In her forward, Dillon explicitly states that she does not want this book to be taken as direct history, however it does remain "absolutely faithful" to what happened. In addition, she put in a great deal of work to ensure that even the geography and customs were accurate to the time. For this reason and when looking at the age and details of the book, many people comment on details and the amount of research necessary for this and are amazed at how accurate many of the descriptions are.