American popular novelist and short-story writer of mainly humorous fiction, best known as the author of the title story of a collection called The Lady, or the Tiger? (1884).

Stockton refused to study medicine as his father wished and became a wood engraver. He contributed to and was on the staff of Hearth and Home and in 1873 became assistant editor of the St. Nicholas Magazine. His earliest fiction was written for children. Among his most popular children's stories were those collected in Ting-a-Ling Tales (1870) and The Floating Prince, and Other Fairy Tales (1881).

His adult novel Rudder Grange (1879), originally serialized in Scribner's Monthly, recounted the whimsically fantastic and amusing adventures of a family living on a canal boat. Its success encouraged two sequels, Rudder Grangers Abroad (1891) and Pomona's Travels (1894). The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine (1886) told of two middle-aged women on a sea voyage to Japan who become castaways on a deserted island. A sequel appeared in 1888 as The Dusantes.

Though he continued to write some juvenile fiction, Stockton wrote mostly for adults after 1887. He also wrote a book of history, Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coast (1898).