Mary Jane Holmes

Mary Jane Holmes
"A Woman of the Century"
Born(1825-04-05)April 5, 1825
Brookfield, Massachusetts
DiedOctober 6, 1907(1907-10-06) (aged 82)
Brockport, New York

Mary Jane Holmes (April 5, 1825 – October 6, 1907)[1] was an American author who published 39 novels, as well as short stories. Her first novel sold 250,000 copies; and she had total sales of 2 million books in her lifetime, second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her books included: "Tempest and Sunshine" (1854), "English Orphans" (1855), "Homestead on the Hillside" (1855), "Lena Rivers" (1856), "Meadow Brook" (1857), "Dora Deane" (1858), "Cousin Maude" (1860), "Marian Gray" 186^, "Hugh Worthington" (1864), "Cameron Vide" (1867). "Rose Mather" (1868), "Ethelyn’s Mistake" (1869), "Edna Browning" (1872), "Mildred" (1877), "Forest House" (1879), "Daisy Thornton," "Queenie Hetherton" (1883), "Christmas Stories" (1884), "Bessie's Fortune" (1885). "Gretchen" (1887), "Marguerite" (1891).[2]

Portraying domestic life in small-town and rural settings, she examined gender relationships, as well as those of class and race. She also dealt with slavery and the American Civil War with a strong sense of moral justice. Since the late 20th century, she has received fresh recognition and reappraisal, although her popular work was excluded from most 19th-century literary histories.

  1. ^ Urness, Carol L. (c. 1971). "Holmes, Mary Jane Hawes". In James, Edward T. (ed.). Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Vol. II: G-O. James, Janet Wilson; Boyer, Paul S. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 0-674-62734-2. Retrieved June 18, 2010.
  2. ^ Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "HOLMES, Mrs. Mary Jane". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Charles Wells Moulton. p. 390. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.