author
Jeannette L. (Jeannette Leonard) Gilder
1849–1916
A sharp, energetic voice in American literary journalism, she helped shape the way readers discovered books, theater, and the arts in the late 1800s. Best known as a founder of The Critic, she built a career as an editor, reviewer, and author at a time when few women held that kind of influence in publishing.
1 Audiobook
Trilbyana: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel
by Joseph Benson Gilder, Jeannette L. (Jeannette Leonard) Gilder
About the author
Born in Flushing, New York, in 1849, Jeannette Leonard Gilder grew up in a large, literary family and entered journalism as a young woman. She worked on newspapers in Newark and New York, later serving on the New York Herald and contributing as a correspondent and critic for several other papers.
In 1881, she and her brother Joseph B. Gilder founded The Critic, a magazine that became an important part of American literary and cultural life. She was known for lively, independent opinions and for writing about books, music, and drama in a way that reached a wide general audience.
Gilder also published books of fiction, travel, and commentary, and her papers are preserved at Harvard, reflecting the range of her professional life and connections in the literary world. She died in New York in 1916, but her career still stands out as an early example of a woman shaping public conversation as both editor and critic.