Spofford, Harriet (1835 - 1921)

Genre: General Fiction, Mystery, Poetry, Romance Novel, Science Fiction/Fantasy

Harriet Prescott Spofford, born on April 3, 1835 in Calais, Maine, was a well-known writer of detective stories, science fiction, and romance tales. Her first major magazine sale, a detective story called 'In the Cellar' (1859), was to the Atlantic Monthly. Some of her stories are included in The Amber Gods and Other Stories, which was re-published in 1989, and edited by Alfred Bendixen. There is an entry on Spofford in Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present (ed. Robert McHenry, 1983).

Spofford married Newburyport lawyer Richard S. Spofford in 1865 and lived most of her adult life in Newburyport and Amesbury, Massachusetts. She died on August 14, 1921.

Selected Bibliography

  • Sir Rohan's Ghost: A Romance (1860; published anonymously)
  • The Amber Gods and Other Stories (1863)
  • Azarian: An Episode (1864)
  • New-England Legends (1871)
  • Art Decoration Applied to Furniture (1878)
  • Poems (1882)
  • The Marquis of Carabas (1882)
  • Hester Stanley at Saint Marks (1883; novel)
  • Ballads About Authors (1887)
  • Hymn, for the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Sarah Balch Braman (1890)
  • A Lost Jewel (1891)
  • A Scarlet Poppy, and Other Stories (1894/1969)
  • Three Heroines of New England Romance: Their True Stories Herein Set Forth (1894; with Louise I. Guiney and Alice Brown)
  • A Master Spirit (1896)
  • In Titian's Gardens, and Other Poems (1897)
  • Hester Stanley's Friends (1898)
  • Priscilla's Love-Story (1898)
  • The Maid He Married (1899)
  • Old Madame: And Other Tragedies (1900)
  • The Children of the Valley (1901)
  • The Great Procession (1902)
  • That Betty (1903)
  • Old Washington (1906)
  • The Fairy Changeling (1910)
  • The Making of a Fortune: A Romance (1911)
  • A Little Book of Friends (1916; essays)
  • The Elder's People (1920/1970; stories)
  • The Servant Girl Question (1977)

Selected Resources