Mary Elizabeth Phillips

An American author and biographer born in Chicago in 1857, she built her reputation by writing accessible books about major literary and cultural figures. Archival records from the Boston Public Library describe her work as focused especially on biographies of American writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Wetmore Story.

Her papers show a long, careful writing career that stretched from the late 19th century into the 20th, with research files and correspondence documenting how she developed her books. She is particularly associated with her two-volume biography Edgar Allan Poe: The Man (1926), as well as works on Cooper and Story.

She also wrote for younger readers, including books such as Laureled Leaders for Little Folk and Laurel Leaves for Little Folk. She died in 1945, leaving behind a body of work shaped by literary history, biography, and a strong interest in making authors' lives readable and engaging.