author
Eliza Buckminster Lee
1794–1864
A 19th-century American writer who brought New England’s people and past to life in memoir, fiction, and biography. Her books range from local sketches to historical novels and studies of figures she admired.
1 Audiobook
Delusion; or, The Witch of New England
by Eliza Buckminster Lee
About the author
Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Eliza Buckminster Lee was educated within a notably literary and religious family. Reliable sources agree that she was the daughter of Joseph Buckminster, and that her father and her brother Joseph Stevens Buckminster played an important role in her education.
She became known as an American writer whose work moved across several forms, including fiction, memoir, biography, and translation from German. Sources consistently credit her with books such as Sketches of New England Life (1837), Naomi; or, Boston Two Hundred Years Ago (1848), and memoirs of her father and brother published in 1849.
The record is a little inconsistent on her exact birth year, with sources variously listing 1792 and 1794, but they agree that she died on June 22, 1864, in Massachusetts. What stands out most is the range of her writing and her gift for preserving the character of New England life for later readers.