author
Louise Forsslund
1873–1910
A gifted early-20th-century American writer, she turned family stories and Long Island life into vivid fiction. Writing as Louise Forsslund, Mary Louise Foster published novels and short stories that found readers in major magazines of her day.
1 Audiobook
Old Lady Number 31
by Louise Forsslund
About the author
Born Mary Louise Foster in Sayville, New York, on March 13, 1873, she wrote under the pen name Louise Forsslund, using her father's original Swedish surname. Her father had changed the family name to Foster after immigrating, and his life experiences became an important source for her fiction.
Forsslund published short stories in magazines including The Ladies' Home Journal, The Century Magazine, and The Outlook. She also wrote several novels in the first decade of the 20th century, among them The Story of Sarah, The Ship of Dreams, When Men Make Love, and Old Lady Number 31.
Her work is often connected with the people and settings of Long Island, and it blends sentiment, local character, and storytelling drawn from everyday life. She died on May 2, 1910, at just 37, leaving behind a small but memorable body of work from a brief literary career.