Mary Lydia Branch

Born in New London, Connecticut, in 1840, Mary Lydia Bolles Branch was an American writer known mainly for stories and poems for children. Reference works consistently identify her as a children's writer, and surviving records tie her closely to New London, where she was also born and where she died in 1922.

Her books include The Kanter Girls and A Visit to Newfoundland. The latter, now preserved by Project Gutenberg, shows another side of her writing: clear-eyed travel narrative, rich in scenes of coastal life and the people she met.

Branch also wrote about local and family history, which helps explain the strong sense of place in her work. Taken together, her writing suggests an author drawn to domestic life, regional memory, and the small human details that make older books still feel alive.