author
Sara Beaumont Kennedy
d. 1921
A Southern writer and newspaper editor, she wrote historical fiction, children’s stories, and poetry with a clear love of place and storytelling. Her work ranged from Revolutionary-era romance to verse, showing an author comfortable in several literary forms.
1 Audiobook
Joscelyn Cheshire: A Story of Revolutionary Days in the Carolinas
by Sara Beaumont Kennedy
About the author
Born in Somerville, Tennessee, in 1859 as Sara Beaumont Cannon, she was educated at St. Mary’s Protestant Episcopal School in Raleigh, North Carolina, and later became known as a writer and newspaper editor in Memphis. She married Walker Kennedy in 1888 and built a varied literary career that included fiction, poetry, and writing for periodicals.
Her books include Joscelyn Cheshire: A Story of Revolutionary Days in the Carolinas, The Wooing of Judith, and the children’s book Told in a Little Boy’s Pocket. She also published poetry collections including One Wish, and Other Poems of Love and Life and Poems, and contemporary biographical sources describe her as a prolific contributor to newspapers and magazines.
Some library and archive records list her as "d. 1921," but the most consistent biographical source found here gives her death date as March 12, 1920. Either way, her writing belongs to the generation of early 20th-century American women authors whose work moved easily between popular fiction, verse, and editorial life.