author
Blanche Willis Howard
1847–1898
An American novelist and journalist who built a literary life in Germany, she wrote fiction that moved from sentimental storytelling toward realism and the emerging "New Woman" novel. Her work was widely read in the late 19th century, with European settings and independent heroines that helped set her apart.
1 Audiobook
One Year Abroad
by Blanche Willis Howard
About the author
Born in Bangor, Maine, in 1847, Blanche Willis Howard became known as an American writer whose career took shape largely in Germany. She lived for many of her productive years in Stuttgart, and that expatriate life strongly influenced both the settings and outlook of her fiction.
Her first novel, One Summer, brought early attention, and later books continued to earn praise. Critics and reference works describe her writing as developing from sentimental fiction toward realism and themes associated with the "New Woman," making her an interesting figure in the changing literary culture of the late 1800s.
Howard also worked as a journalist, and after her marriage she was sometimes known as Blanche Willis Howard von Teuffel. She died in 1898 in Germany, leaving behind a body of work that connected American authorship with European experience in a distinctive way.