author
Mary Lydia Branch
1840–1922
A Connecticut writer remembered for children’s stories, poems, and family-history writing, she moved easily between imaginative fiction and a deep sense of place. Her work is also closely tied to old New London families and the local history that shaped her life.
1 Audiobook
A Visit to Newfoundland
by Mary Lydia Branch
About the author
Mary Lydia Bolles Branch was born in New London, Connecticut, on June 13, 1840, and died there on April 17, 1922. Sources describe her as an American children’s writer and poet, and also note that she served as an assistant editor of the Saturday Evening Post in Philadelphia in 1865.
She is chiefly remembered for writing stories and poems for young readers. Her best-known poem is often identified as The Petrified Fern, and works associated with her include The Kanter Girls, The Old Hempstead House, Home of Eight Generations, The Manner of Life of Nancy Hempstead, and the travel piece A Visit to Newfoundland.
Branch’s life was closely connected with New London and the Hempstead family heritage of southeastern Connecticut. She was also the mother of poet Anna Hempstead Branch, which places her within a family line strongly linked to American literary and local historical traditions.