Edward Payson Roe was born in New York. He studied at Williams College and at Auburn Theological Seminary. In 1862 He became chaplain of the Second New York Cavalry, U.S.V., and in 1864 chaplain of Hampton Hospital, in Virginia. In 1866-74 he was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Highland Falls, New York. In 1874 he removed to Cornwall-on-Hudson, where he devoted himself to the writing of fiction and to horticulture. During the American Civil War, he wrote weekly letters to the New York Evangelist, and subsequently lectured on the war and wrote for periodicals.

His novels were very popular in their day, especially with middle class readers in England and America, and were translated into several European languages. Their strong moral and religious purpose, and their being written by a clergyman, did much to break down a Puritan prejudice in America against works of fiction.