Category: Poets and Writers

Washington Irving’s One and Only Love Though she died very young, Matilda Hoffman made such a deep impression on the young American author Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) that he mourned her passing for the rest of his life. Decades later, the mere mention of her name left him speechless. Sarah Matilda Hoffman was born in 1791, daughter of Josiah Ogden and Mary Colden Hoffman. Matilda, as she was known, grew up in Manhattan and Albany, New York. Her mother died when she was six years old and her father married Maria Fenno five years later and began a second family. Maria was only ten years older than Matilda.

Woman Who Thought Shakespeare Was a Fraud Delia Bacon was an American author and playwright who is best know today for her theory that William Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by a group of British men, including Francis Bacon (no relation), Sir Walter Raleigh and others. Early Years Delia Salter Bacon was born on February 2, 1811 on what was then the frontier in Tallmadge, Ohio, the daughter of a minister, who left New Haven for the wilds of Ohio in pursuit of a vision. In 1817 her father went bankrupt and the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and her father died soon after. All six children were promptly farmed out to friends of the family. Delia was lucky enough…

Author, Educator and Magazine Editor Caroline Kirkland (1801–1864) was a relatively early American writer, and author of three books about frontier days on the Michigan frontier. As an editor, Kirkland demonstrated a strong commitment to realism in the materials she accepted for publication and considerable critical skill in her reviews, including an enthusiastic response to Herman Melville’s early books. On January 11, 1801 Caroline Mathilda Stansbury was born into a middle class family in New York City, where she spent most of her childhood and adolescence. She was the oldest of eleven children born to Samuel and Eliza Alexander Stansbury. Caroline grew up in a loving and tolerant family and enjoyed many advantages as a girl. Her mother was herself…

Sarah Helen Whitman was a poet, essayist and fiancee of author Edgar Allan Poe. Whitman and Poe were engaged, and had her family not interfered in the relationship, they might have married. She was also active in the women’s suffrage movement in Rhode Island as well as in other efforts at social reform. Sarah Helen Power was born in Providence, Rhode Island on January 19, 1803, six years to the day before Edgar Allan Poe. Reading from an early age, Sarah was given a good education. She began writing poetry while at school, and beginning in the 1820s, her poetry appeared in newspapers, magazines, annuals and gift books.