Alice Brown (December 5, 1857 – June 21, 1948) was an American novelist, poet and playwright, best known as a writer of local color stories. She also contributed a chapter to the collaborative novel, The Whole Family (1908).
Biography She was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire and graduated from Robinson Female Seminary in Exeter in 1876. She later worked as a school teacher for five years, but moved to Boston to write full-time in 1884. She first worked at the Christian Register and then, starting in 1885, the Youth's Companion.
Brown is believed to have had a long-term relationship with Louise Imogen Guiney and wrote of their travels together in her book By Oak and Thorn (1897) and later wrote the biography Louise Imogen Guiney — a Study (1921).
Brown was a prolific author for many years, but her popularity waned after the turn of the 20th century. She produced a book a year until she stopped writing in 1935. She corresponded with Rev. Michael Earls of the College of the Holy Cross and with Father J. M. Lelen of Falmouth, Kentucky, with whom she also exchanged poems. Yale University and Holy Cross now have the only sizable collections of her letters, since she ordered that most of her personal correspondence should be destroyed after her death. Brown died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948.
Works Fools of Nature (1887) novel Sunrise on Mansfield Mountain (1895) (Harper's New Monthly Magazine Oct 1895) Meadow-Grass: Tales of New England Life (1896) stories The Rose of Hope (1896) Mercy Warren (1896) The Day of His Youth (1897) novel By Oak and Thorn (1897) travelog Tiverton Tales (1899) stories Kings End (1901) novel Margaret Warrener (1901) novel The Mannerings (1903) novel High Noon (1904) stories Paradise (1905) novel The Country Road (1906) stories Rose MacLeod (1908) novel The Whole Family (1908, collaborative novel) The Story of Thyza (1909) novel John Winterbourne's Family (1910) novel Country Neighbors (1910) stories Golden Baby (1910) In 2009, The Library of America selected this story for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales, edited by Peter Straub.American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps. Ed. Peter Straub. . The Library of America. Retrieved July 28, 2013. The One-Footed Fairy (1911) stories The Secret of the Clan (1912) My Love and I (1912) novel Robin Hood's Barn (1913) Vanishing Points (1913) stories Joint Owners in Spain (1914)Brown, Alice. Joint Owners in Spain - A Comedy in One Act. Google Books. Retrieved July 28, 2013. Children of Earth (1915) play Bromley Neighborhood (1917) novel The Prisoner (1916) novel The Flying Teuton (1918) stories The Black Drop (1919) novel Homespun and Gold (1920) stories The Wind Between the Worlds (1920) novel One-Act Plays (1921) Louise Imogen Guiney — a Study (1921) biography Old Crow (1922) novel Ellen Prior, (1923) verse Dear Old Templeton (1927) novel The Diary of a Dryad (1932) novel The Kingdom in the Sky (1932) novel Jeremy Hamlin (1934) novel The Willoughbys (1935) novel
[Those titles not classified are individual short stories.]
Another book by Alice Brown is The Patient Sufferer, A Story For Youth. It was written for the American Sunday-School Union, and revised by the Committee of Publication. Also noted on title page: Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, No. 146 Chestnut Street. This book also has a sketch on the preceding page with the title "Where Alice Brown lived".
Notes
References
External links
Guide to the Alice Brown Papers, 1876-1947 (University of New Hampshire Library)
Full text of "The Secret of the Clan", Macmillan Company, 1912. Alice Brown Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.