Elizabeth Stoddard

Born Elizabeth Drew Barstow in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, she became Elizabeth Stoddard after marrying writer Richard Henry Stoddard. She lived much of her adult life in New York literary circles and wrote poetry, short fiction, and criticism as well as novels.

She is especially remembered for The Morgesons (1862), a novel now often praised for its unusual emotional force and its close attention to the inner lives of women. Her writing could be restless, witty, and unsentimental, which made it feel different from much popular American fiction of the time.

Although she was not widely celebrated in the same way as some of her contemporaries during her lifetime, her reputation grew later as readers and scholars returned to her work. Today she is often seen as an original voice in 19th-century American literature.