Richards, Laura Elizabeth (1850 - 1943)

Genre: Children's Literature, Non-Fiction

Pulitzer Prize winning author Richards was born 27 Feb. 1850 in Boston, the daughter of Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Gridley Howe, and was educated in Boston schools. She married the architect Henry Richards in 1871 and they moved to Gardiner, Maine in 1876.

Richards' first published works appeared in 1873, nonsense rhymes and nursery songs in St. Nicholas. Her best-known book is Captain January (1890), which sold 300,000 copies and was twice adapted into a film of the same name -- once in 1924 and again in 1936.

Besides writing the books listed below, Richards also edited her father's 2-volume Letters and Journals (1906-1909); she founded the Women's Philanthropic Union in 1895 and was president for 26 years; she was president of the Maine Consumers' League from 1905-1911. She and her husband operated Camp Merryweather for 30 years, a pioneering camp for boys.

She died in Gardiner on 14 Jan. 1943.

Selected Bibliography

  • Sketches and Scraps (1881)
  • Five Mice in a Mouse Trap (1881)
  • The Joyous Story of Toto (1885)
  • Toto's Merry Winter (1887)
  • Queen Hildegarde (1889)
  • In My Nursery (1890)
  • Captain January (1890)
  • Hildegarde's Holiday (1891)
  • Hildegarde's Home (1892)
  • Melody (1893)
  • Glimpses of the French Court (1893)
  • When I Was Your Age (1894)
  • Marie (1894)
  • Nautilus (1895)
  • Jim of Hellas (1895)
  • Five Minute Stories (1895)
  • Narcissa (1896)
  • Isla Heron (1896)
  • Some Say (1896)
  • Hildegarde's Harvest (1897)
  • Three Margarets (1897)
  • Margaret Montfort (1898)
  • Love and Rocks (1898)
  • Rosin the Beau (1898)
  • Peggy (1899)
  • Rita (1900)
  • For Tommy (1900)
  • Quicksilver Sue (1901)
  • Mrs. Tree (1902)
  • The Hurdy Gurdy (1902)
  • The Green Satin Gown (1903)
  • The Golden Windows (1903)
  • The Merryweathers (1904)
  • Mrs. Tree's Will (1905)
  • The Piccolo (1906)
  • The Silver Crown (1906)
  • Grandmother (1907)
  • The Life of Florence Nightingale for Young People (1909)
  • Up To Calvin's (1910)
  • Two Noble Lives (1911)
  • Miss Jimmy (1912)
  • The Little Master (1913)
  • Three Minute Stories (1914)
  • The Life of Julia Ward Howe (1915) (with sister Maud Howe Elliott; won first Pulitzer Prize for biography)
  • The Life of Elizabeth Fry (1916)
  • The Life of Abigail Adams (1917)
  • The Life of Joan of Arc (1919)
  • Honor Bright (1920)
  • The Squire (1923)
  • Oriental Operettas (1924)
  • Star Bright (1927)
  • Laura Bridgman (1928) (biography of her father's most celebrated pupil and the woman for whom Richards herself was named)
  • Stepping Westward (1931) (autobiography)
  • Tirra Lirra (1932)
  • Samuel Gridley Howe (1935)
  • E.A.R. (1936) (about Edwin Arlington Robinson)
  • I Have A Song To Sing You (1938)
  • Jiggle Joggle Jee (2001)

Selected Resources