By Taylor Jasmine | On August 21, 2015 | Updated January 26, 2025 | Comments (0)
Mary Mapes Dodge (January 26, 1831 – August 21, 1905) was an American writer and editor of children’s books and stories. She is best known for the children’s novel, Hans Brinker.
Born Mary Elizabeth Mapes in New York City, she was he daughter of a well-to-do family and enjoyed a privileged education by private tutors that included languages, literature, music, and art.
In 1851, at age twenty, she married William Dodge, a lawyer with whom her father had business dealings. In short order, the couple had two sons. Just a few years into the marriage, Mr. Dodge was beset by financial difficulties and abandoned the family. He was found dead a month later from an apparent drowning. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 19, 2015 | Updated May 17, 2025 | Comments (0)
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917– September 29, 1967) was an American author of novels and short stories. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (published when she was just twenty-three) is arguably her best-known work. Many of her short stories have retained a prominent place in the American canon.
Born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, her parents, Lamar Smith, a jeweler, and Marguerite Waters Smith, provided her and her two siblings with a comfortable middle-class life.
Lula Carson was their first-born child. Her parents considered her an artistic genius and encouraged her interests, especially music. Lynne Greeley, writing in Theatre History Studies, refers to Carson McCullers as “the preferred child” in her family. Read More→
By Diane Denton | On July 12, 2015 | Updated February 5, 2024 | Comments (6)
Mary Webb (March 25, 1881 – October 8, 1927), born Mary Gladys Meredith in Leighton near Shrewsbury, was an English novelist and poet best known for the novel Precious Bane. She had strong ties to the countryside and people of her native Shropshire.
As a girl, she wrote plays and stories to entertain her five younger sisters and brothers. She matured into an essayist, poet and novelist who drew on her pantheistic view of nature, fascination with folklore, innate sense of mysticism, consideration of the female experience, and empathy with the most vulnerable and stigmatized of earth’s creatures. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 10, 2015 | Updated November 1, 2025 | Comments (0)
Agatha Christie (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), the renowned British author, borrowed from her observations of the world and people surrounding her to become the Queen of Mystery, and sometimes, the Queen of Crime.
Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, U.K, a fashionable seaside resort, she was the youngest of three children. Her childhood was a conventional and happy one, according to her own accounts, and she was educated at home. (photo at right courtesy of Wikimedia commons)
Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), was written as a dare from her sister. Though it took a few years to go to press, Christie was the clear winner of the bet. This was the book that introduced the iconic detective character, Hercule Poirot. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 10, 2015 | Updated September 8, 2026 | Comments (0)
Emily Brontë (July 30, 1818 – December 19, 1848), British author known for Wuthering Heights, was the sister of Charlotte and Anne Brontë. She has also been recognized as a brilliant poet.
The fifth child born to Maria Branwell Brontë and Reverend Patrick Brontë, Emily Jane was, like her sisters, born in the West Yorkshire village of Thornton in England.
The family moved to the quiet Haworth setting where the sisters grew up, along with their brother Branwell. Their mother died while the children were still young. The two oldest sisters, Elizabeth and Maria, both died before adolescence.
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