author
Eliza Southgate Bowne
1783–1809
Remembered for bright, sharply observant letters written in the early American republic, this young Maine-born writer captured everyday life, fashion, friendship, and courtship with unusual wit. Her surviving correspondence has kept her voice alive long after her brief life ended in 1809.
1 Audiobook
A girl's life eighty years ago : Selections from the letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne
by Eliza Southgate Bowne
About the author
Born in Scarborough, Massachusetts District of Maine, on September 24, 1783, she grew up in a prominent family and was educated at a boarding school near Boston, including study at Susanna Rowson's academy. In 1803 she married Walter Bowne, whom she had met at Saratoga Springs, and moved into New York society.
She is best known not for a published book during her lifetime, but for the letters she wrote to family and friends. Lively, funny, and full of detail, they paint a vivid picture of social life in the early 1800s and have often been quoted and anthologized because they feel so immediate and personal.
Her life was short: she died in February 1809 at just 25 years old. Yet the posthumous publication of her letters made her an enduring literary presence, valued today for the rare window they offer into the thoughts and daily experiences of an educated American woman of her time.