author
Augusta de Grasse Stevens
1852–1894
An American novelist and art critic who built much of her career in London, she wrote historical fiction and reported for New York newspapers from abroad. Her life was brief, but it carried her from Albany to European literary circles and into the pages of 19th-century magazines and novels.
3 Audiobooks
Miss Hildreth: A Novel, Volume 2
by Augusta de Grasse Stevens
Miss Hildreth: A Novel, Volume 1
by Augusta de Grasse Stevens
Miss Hildreth: A Novel, Volume 3
by Augusta de Grasse Stevens
About the author
Born in Albany, New York, in 1852, Augusta de Grasse Stevens was the daughter of patent attorney Samuel S. Stevens and Mary Frances Smith. After the deaths of her father and stepfather, she moved with her mother to London, where her sister Marie was already living. That move shaped both her life and her writing career.
Stevens became known as a novelist and art critic, and she also worked as a London correspondent for New York newspapers. She wrote historical fiction, including The Lost Dauphin and Miss Hildreth, along with shorter work for periodicals. Her writing linked American readers with European settings, society, and culture at a time when transatlantic literary careers were still unusual for women.
She died in London on October 10, 1894. Though not widely known today, she stands out as a 19th-century American writer who made a place for herself in the literary world across two continents.