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Mrs. Lydia Maria Child











(Born: February 11, 1802 - Died: October 20, 1880)

American editor, author and abolitionist. Lydia Maria Francis was born in Medford, MA. She was the last of six children. Her parents were Susanna Rand and David Convers Francis, her father being a banker and real-estate broker of some means. In 1828, Lydia married David Lee Child, who would become one of the founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. He died on September 18, 1874, and she died just over 6 years later. Both died in Wayland, MA.

For  eight years, beginning in 1826, she edited and published the Juvenile Miscellany, the first monthly magazine aimed at children in the United States.

Among her best remembered works are Philothea: A Grecian Romance (Boston: Otis Broaders, 1836) and the poem "Boy's Thanksgiving," beginning "Over the river and through the woods / To grandfather's house we go" (first published in Flowers to Children, 1844). Her long career as a prominent abolitionist began with the publication of An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (Boston, 1833).

A collection of her papers may be found at the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan.
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child














Criticism (Texts and Variant Texts)
  • Review of Philothea: A Romance — September 1836 — Southern Literary Messenger
  • Review of Philothea: A Romance — May 24, 1845 — Broadway Journal
  • Notice from "The Literati"
    • "Lydia M. Child" ("The Literati of New York City" - No. V) — September 1846 — Godey's Lady's Book
    • "Lydia M. Child" ("The Literati") — 1850 — WORKS








Bibliography:
  • Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L., "Lydia Maria Child," Cyclopedia of American Literature, New York: Charles Scribner, 1856, 2:388-391
  • Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
  • Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978. (Second printing 1979)
  • Osborne, William S., Lydia Maria Child, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
  • Reece, James B., Poe and the New York Literati: A Study of the "Literati" Sketches and of Poe's Relations with the NewYork Writers, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 1954.
  • Roberts, Bette B., "Lydia Maria Francis Child," American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present, ed. Lina Mainiero, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1970, 1:354-355
  • Thomas, Dwight and David K. Jackson, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849, Boston: G. K. Hall & Sons, 1987.
  • Whittier, John Greenleaf, ed., The Letters of Lydia Maria Child, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882  (with an appendix by Wendell Phillips, giving the eulogy he wrote for her after her death) (reprinted in 1983 by Greenwood Publishing)
  • Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds., Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1889, 1:603-604 (as part of the entry on David Lee Child)





 
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