Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee (November 5, 1780-December 27, 1865) was an American writer, best known for her 1837 novelette Three Experiments of Living which was published in more than 30 editions in the United States, and 10 in England. Lee was a popular novelist during her life, though her writing was not lauded and her success is now largely forgotten.Wright, Lyle H. Traditional Errors in American Biography, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jan., 1942), pp. 273-76 (focusing on the actual facts of the publication date of Grace Seymour and whether it was largely lost in a fire).
Life Lee was born in 1780 to physician Micajah Sawyer and Sibyll Farnham, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She married George Gardiner Lee of Boston in 1807, on the same day her sister Mary Anna married Philip Jeremiah Schuyler.Simmons, Nancy Craig, ed. The Selected Letters of Mary Moody Emerson, p. 36 (1993) George Lee died in 1816 leaving Lee with three young daughters.History Happenings, The Daily News (14 December 2019)Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 3, p. 662 (1888) She then went to live with her brother William Sawyer, until his death in 1858. She died at age 85 in Boston in December 1865.
Writing Lee wrote an appendix to an autobiography of Hannah Adams in 1832, which older sources often cite as her first publication, although her little-noticed novel Grace Seymour was first published in 1830. Three Experiments of Living (1837), arising out of the financial crises of the Panic of 1837 was a bestseller for many years. According to the publisher, 20,000 copies were sold in its first two months of publication.Adams, Oscar Fay (16 January 1913). Hannah Farnham Lee, The Christian Register (note that this source misstates the year of her husband's death) It was followed by a successful sequel Elinor Fulton. Three Experiments was in print for almost fifty years.Templin, Mary. Panic Fiction: Women's Responses to Antebellum Economic Crisis, in Legacy, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-16 (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2004) Lee also wrote a number of non-fiction histories.Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America, pp. 73-78 (University of Iowa Press, 2008) The success of Three Experiments was illustrated by the quick imitations such as Fourth Experiment of Living: Living Without Means by Horatio Hastings Weld.Lepler, Jessica M. The Many Panics of 1837, p. 77-82 (2013)The Author of "Three Experiments of Living", The Monthly Religious Magazine (February 1866), pp. 28-30
Bibliography (incomplete) Grace Seymour (1830) The Backslider (1835) Three Experiments of Living (novel) (1837) Elinor Fulton (1837) The Contrast, or Modes of Education (1837) The Harcourts (1837) Rich Enough: A Tale of the Times (1837) Historical Sketches of the Old Painters (1838) The Life and Times of Martin Luther (1839) Rosanna, or Scenes in Boston (1839) The Life and Times of Thomas Cranmer (1841) Tales (1842) The Huguenots in France and America (1843) The World Before You, or the Log Cabin (1847) Stories from Life (1849) Sketches and Stories From Life: For The Young (1850) Memoir of Pierre Toussaint (1853) Familiar Sketches of Sculptors and Sculpture (1854)
References
External links Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee Autograph Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society