author
Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody) Hale
1820–1900
Best known for the delightfully absurd Peterkin family stories, this 19th-century American writer brought a warm, playful sense of humor to children’s literature. She also worked as an editor and wrote novels and short fiction for adult readers.
3 Audiobooks
The Peterkin Papers
by Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody) Hale
The Peterkin papers
by Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody) Hale
The Last of the Peterkins With Others of Their Kin
by Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody) Hale
About the author
Lucretia Peabody Hale was born in Boston on September 2, 1820, and died in Belmont, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1900. She grew up in a notably literary New England family and became an American writer and editor whose work ranged from fiction for adults to stories for children.
She is most closely associated with The Peterkin Papers, a comic classic first published in 1880, along with its later sequel, The Last of the Peterkins. Her humor is often remembered for being gentle, clever, and wonderfully matter-of-fact even when the situations become completely ridiculous.
Beyond her children’s books, Hale edited a magazine with her brother early in her career and published novels, sketches, and short stories over many years. That wider body of work shows a versatile writer, but it is the cheerful nonsense and lasting charm of the Peterkin stories that have kept her name alive for new generations of readers.