author
Frank Preston Stearns
1846–1917
Remembered for lively biographical and historical writing, this Massachusetts author moved easily between literature, art, and public life. His books often explored notable American figures and the cultural world around them.
3 Audiobooks
The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne
by Frank Preston Stearns
Sketches from Concord and Appledore Concord thirty years ago; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Louisa M. Alcott; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Matthew Arnold; David A. Wasson; Wendell Phillips; Appledore and its visitors; John Greenleaf Whittier
by Frank Preston Stearns
Cambridge Sketches
by Frank Preston Stearns
About the author
Born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1846, Frank Preston Stearns was the son of George Luther Stearns, a prominent abolitionist and industrialist. He was educated in Massachusetts and became a writer with wide-ranging interests, including biography, criticism, history, and art.
Stearns is known for books on major American figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Phillips Brooks, as well as works including The Midsummer of Italian Art and Cambridge Sketches. His writing reflects a strong interest in both the intellectual life of New England and the broader cultural currents of his time.
He also took part in reform-minded circles connected to the antislavery movement. Stearns died in 1917, leaving behind a body of work that blends literary appreciation, historical portraiture, and a clear affection for the people and places he wrote about.