Harriet Prescott Spofford

Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921), from Stepping-Stones to Happiness, 1897. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (April 3, 1835 - August 14, 1921) was a notable American poet and fiction writer remembered for her novels, poems and detective stories.

Life

Spofford was born in Calais, Maine. In 1849 she moved with her parents to Newburyport, Massachusetts, which was ever after her home, though she spent many of her winters in Boston and Washington, D.C.

She attended the Putnam Free School in Newburyport, and Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire from 1853 to 1855. At Newburyport her prize essay on Hamlet drew the attention of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who soon became her friend, and gave her counsel and encouragement.

When her parents became sick, of necessity she set to work as a writer, sometimes laboring 15 hours a day. She contributed to Boston story papers for small pay.

In 1859, she submitted to Atlantic Monthly a story about Parisian life entitled “In a Cellar.” The magazine's editor, James Russell Lowell, initially believed the story to be a translation, and withheld it from publication. Reassured that it was original, he published it, and it established her reputation. She became a welcome contributor to the chief periodicals of the United States, both of prose and poetry.

In 1865, she married Richard S. Spofford, a Boston lawyer, and they resided on Deer Island overlooking the Merrimack River at Amesbury, a suburb of Newburyport, where she died.

Writing

Spofford's fiction had very little in common with what was regarded as representative of the New England mind. Her gothic romances were set apart by luxuriant descriptions, and an unconventional handling of female stereotypes of the day. Her writing was ideal, intense in feeling. In her descriptions and fancies, she reveled in sensuous delights and every variety of splendor.

When Higginson asked Emily Dickinson whether she had read Spofford's work “Circumstance,” Dickinson replied, "I read Miss Prescott's ‘Circumstance,’ but it followed me in the dark, so I avoided her."

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882.
• Ballads About Authors. Boston: D. Lothrop, 1887.
• In Titian's Garden and other poems. Boston: Copeland & Day, 1897.

Novels

• Sir Rohan's Ghost: A romance.Boston: J.E. Tilton, 1860.
• Azarian: An episode. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864.
• The Thief in the Night. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1872.
• The Marquis of Carabas. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882.
• An Inheritance. New York: Scribner, 1897.
• Priscilla's Love Story. Chicago & New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1898.
• The Maid He Married. Chicago & New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1899.
• That Betty. New York & London: F.H. Revell, 1903.
• The Making of a Fortune: A romance. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1911.
• The Elder's People. Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1920.

Short fiction

• The Amber Gods, and other stories. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863.
  • (edited with an introduction by Alfred Bendixen). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
• New England Legends. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871.
• "Louie", in Not Pretty, but Precious. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1871.
• A Scarlet Poppy, and other stories. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894.
• Old Madame, and other tragedies. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1900.* The Ray of Displacement and other stories. 1903
• Old Washington. Boston: Little, Brown, 1906.
• The Moonstone Mass and others (edited and with an introduction by Jessica Amanda Salmonson). Ash-Tree Press, 2000.

Non-fiction

• Art Decoration Applied to Furniture. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878.
• The Servant Girl Question. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin / Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1881.
• House and Hearth. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1891.
• Three Heroines of New England Romance: Their true stories herein set forth (with Louise Imogen Guiney and Alice Brown; illustrated by Edmund H. Garrett). Boston: Little, Brown, 1894.
• A Master Spirit. New York: Scribner, 1896.
• Stepping-Stones to Happiness. New York: Christian Herald, 1897.
• Four Days of God. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1905.
• A Little Book of Friends. Boston: Little, Brown, 1916.

Juvenile

• Hester Stanley at St. Mark's. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882.
• Hester Stanley's Friends. Boston: Little Brown, 1898.
• The Children of the Valley. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1901.
• The Great Procession and other verses for and about children. Boston: Gorham Press / Richard G. Badger, 1902.
• The Fairy Changeling: A flower and fairy play. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1911.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

270 Evanescence by Harriet Prescott Spofford Clarica Poetry Moment

• List of U.S. poets

References

• File:Wikisource-logo.svg Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds (1905). "^{article name needed}". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. 
  Main article: [[|]]
• File:Wikisource-logo.svg Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900) "Spofford, Harriet Prescott" Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography New York: D. Appleton 

Fonds

• Harriet Prescott Spofford papers 1860-1912 at the University of New England.

External links

Poems

• Harriet Prescott Spofford in An American Anthology 1787-1900: "A Sigh," "Evanescence," "Music in the Night," "Phantoms All," "The Hunt," "The Pines," "Voice"

Prose

• "Circumstance"
• Harriet Prescott Spofford selected works available online

Books

• Works by Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford at Project Gutenberg
• Different works of hers at Project Gutenberg Australia: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606581.txt
• Works by Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford at Internet Archive.
• Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford at the Online Books Page
• Harriet Prescott Spofford at Amazon.com
• Harriet Prescott Spofford at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

About

• Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) at Perspectives in American Literature
• Harried Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) at Cengage Learning