Rich, Louise Dickinson (1903 - 1991)

Genre: Children's Literature, Non-Fiction, Young Adult

Best known for her first book We Took To the Woods (1942), about the Rangeley Lake area, Louise Dickinson Rich was born in Huntington, MA, died in Mattapoisett, MA (14 June 1903 - 9 April 1991), but wrote many books about life in rural northwestern Maine.

She received her B.Sc. from Massachusetts State Teachers' College in 1924 and worked as a high school English teacher before she became a writer.

She and her husband, Ralph Eugene Rich, lived in a camp on the Rapid River in Maine from the time they were married until he died in 1945. After his death, Rich supported herself and her two children through her writing.

Selected Bibliography

  • Happy the Land (1946)
  • Start of the Trail (1949)
  • My Neck of the Woods (1950)
  • Trail to the North (1952)
  • Only Parent (1953)
  • Innocence Under the Elms (1955)
  • The Coast of Maine (1956)
  • Peninsula (1958)
  • First Book of The Early Settlers (1959)
  • First Book of New World Explorers (1960)
  • First Book of The Vikings (1962)
  • First Book of The China Clippers (1962)
  • State O' Maine (1964)
  • First Book of The Fur Trade (1965)
  • First Book of Lumbering (1967)
  • The Kennebec River (1967)
  • Star Island Boy (1968)
  • Three of A Kind (1970)
  • King Philip's War 1675-76: The New England Indians Fight the Colonists (1972)
  • Summer at High Kingdom (1975)

Selected Resources