Born in Medford, Mass., 11th February, 1802. Her father was David Francis. Lydia was assisted in her early studies by her brother, Convers Francis, who was afterwards professor of theology in Harvard College…. She studied in the public schools and one year in a seminary. In 1814 she went to Norridgewock, Maine, to live with her married sister. She remained there several years and then returned to Watertown, Mass., to live with her brother. He encouraged her literary aspirations, and in his study she wrote her first story, “Hobomok,” which was published in 1823. It proved successful, and she next published “Rebels,” which ran quickly through several editions. She then brought out in rapid succession “The Mother’s Book,” which ran through eight American, twelve English and one German editions, “The Girl’s Book,” the “History of Women,” and the “Frugal Housewife” which passed through thirty-five editions. In 1826 she commenced to publish her “Juvenile Miscellany.” In 1828 she became the wife of David Lee Child, a lawyer, and they settled in Boston, Mass. In 1831 they became interested in the anti-slavery movement, and both took an active part in the agitation that followed. Mr. Child was one of the leaders of the anti-slavery party. In 1833 Mrs. Child published her “Appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans.” Its appearance served to cut her off from the friends and admirers of her youth. Social and literary circles shut their doors to her. The sales of her books and subscriptions to her magazines fell off, and her life became one of battle. Through it all she bore herself with patience and courage, and she threw herself into the movement with all her powers. While engaged in that memorable battle, she found time to produce her lives of Madame Roland and Baroness de Staël, and her Greek romance “Philothea.” She, with her husband, supervised editorially the Anti-Slavery Standard, in which she published her admirable “Letters from New York.” During those troubled times she prepared her three-volume work on “The Progress of Religious Ideas.” She lived in New York City with her husband from 1840 to 1844, when she removed to Wayland, Mass., where she died 20th October, 1880. Her Anti-Slavery writings aided powerfully in bringing about the overthrow of slavery, and she lived to see a reversal of the hostile opinions that greeted her first plea for the negroes. Her books are numerous. Besides those already mentioned the most important are “Flowers for Children” (3 volumes 1844–46); “Fact and Fiction” (1846); “The Power of Kindness” (1851); “Isaac T. Hopper, A True Life” (1853); “Autumnal Leaves” (1856); “Looking Towards Sunset” (1864); “The Freedman’s Book” (1865); “Miria” (1867), and “Aspirations of the World” (1878)…. A volume of her letters, with an introduction by John Greenleaf Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips, was published in Boston in 1882.

Personal

  Mrs. Child, casually observed, has nothing particularly striking in her personal appearance. One would pass her in the street a dozen times without notice. She is low in stature and slightly framed. Her complexion is florid; eyes and hair are dark; features in general diminutive. The expression of her countenance, when animated, is highly intellectual. Her dress is usually plain, not even neat—anything but fashionable. Her bearing needs excitement to impress it with life and dignity. She is of that order of beings who are themselves only on “great occasions.”

  A dear lovable woman, welcome at a sick bedside; as much in place there as when facing an angry nation; contented in the home she made; the loyal friend; such ingenuity in devising ways to help you; the stalwart fidelity of friendship, rare in these easy going, half-and-half, non-committal days; such friendship as allowed no word of disparagement, no doubt of a friend’s worth, to insult her presence. A wise counsellor, one who made your troubles hers and pondered thoughtfully before she spoke her hearty word. We feel we have lost one who would have stood by us in trouble, a shield. She was the kind of woman one would choose to represent woman’s entrance into broader life. Modest, womanly, simple, sincere, solid, real, loyal; to be trusted; equal to affairs and yet above them; mother-wit ripened by careful training, and enriched with the lore of ages; a companion with the pass-word of every science and all literatures; a hand ready for fire-side help and a mystic loving to wander on the edge of the actual reaching up and out into the infinite and the unfathomable; so that life was lifted to romance, to heroism and the loftiest faith. May we almost have a faith that is almost sight. How joyful to remember, dear friend, your last counsel, the words you thought spirit hands had traced for your epitaph: “You think us dead. We are not dead; we are the living.”

  She bid fair to be the most popular authoress in America, and her recorded publications show a continuous production of books and pamphlets from 1824 to 1878, ranging from works of the imagination to cookery-books, from New England history to the history of religions, from juvenile periodicals (the first ever established) to political tracts. It is well known that her open association with the abolitionists, following her husband’s example, cost her her literary popularity at one blow, and made literary ambition seem despicable to her, though it may be thought strange that the author of “Hobomok,” “The Rebels,” and “Philothea” was not led to produce an anti-slavery romance anticipating “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

  Thenceforth her life was a battle; a constant rowing hard against the stream of popular prejudice and hatred. And through it all—pecuniary privation, loss of friends and position, the painfulness of being suddenly thrust from “the still air of delightful studies” into the bitterest and sternest controversy of the age—she bore herself with patience, fortitude, and unshaken reliance upon the justice and ultimate triumph of the cause she had espoused. Her pen was never idle. Wherever there was a brave word to be spoken, her voice was heard, and never without effect. It is not exaggeration to say that no man or woman at that period rendered more substantial service to the cause of freedom, or made such a “great renunciation” in doing it. A practical philanthropist, she had the courage of her convictions, and from the first was no mere closet moralist, or sentimental bewailer of the woes of humanity. She was the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. She calmly and unflinchingly took her place by the side of the despised slave and free man of color, and in word and act protested against the cruel prejudice which shut out its victims from the rights and privileges of American citizens. Her philanthropy had no taint of fanaticism; throughout the long struggle, in which she was a prominent actor, she kept her fine sense of humor, good taste, and sensibility to the beautiful in art and nature.

  The impulse which Miss Edgeworth gave to juvenile literature has never died out, and we pass naturally with it to the life of her who issued in America the first children’s magazine. “Here comes Philothea, her face all aglow.” And these half-quizzical lines give us a far better idea of Mrs. Child than the very unlike portrait to be seen in these letters. Of all beautiful women, Mrs. Child was perhaps the most beautiful to those who loved her; and this not so much on account of the exquisite form and color of the mask she wore as because the soul took such triumphant possession of her whole body. Her complexion had the delicacy and freshness of the “apple-blossoms,” of which her brother, Dr. Francis, once said, as he might have said of her, that they seemed “more and more beautiful” every year of his life. Her eyes glowed with a warm fire or danced with childlike merriment; and, when her hair was as white as snow, it still reminded us of the rippling brown curls which fell from her open brow when she first became a wife. Her whole being was fired with a sacred enthusiasm, which was not only felt by herself, but was evident to others, as pervading her to her very fingers’ ends.

  In religious matters she did not identify herself with any local society, or anything strictly denominational. She attended Dr. Sears’s preaching, because she liked the man, but was in full sympathy, we judge, with only her own standard of faith. In earlier life she was nominally a Swedenborgian…. Whether at home or abroad, she was plainly dressed. This may have been through a slight oddity or eccentricity, and a reluctance to appear extravagant. She was especially peculiar in what she wore on her head. The writer recently held in his hands two bonnets, the last ones worn by Mrs. Child. They were almost alike, and evidently the old was not exchanged for the new because of change in the style…. She received company at her house with characteristic simplicity, and with a warmth which made one feel welcome.

  She was not a beautiful girl in the ordinary sense; but her complexion was good, her eyes very bright, her mouth expressive and her teeth fine. She had a good deal of wit, liked to use it, and did use it upon Mr. Child, who was a frequent visitor, but her deportment was always maidenly and lady-like…. Immediately after their marriage they went to house-keeping in a very small house in Boston, most plainly furnished by the little money which Mrs. Child had saved out of her literary earnings. I dined with her once in that very humble home. She kept no servant, and did her own cooking. She had prepared a savory dish, consisting of a meat-pie, perhaps mutton, baked in a small oven, and there were roasted or baked potatoes, and a baked Indian pudding. Mr. Child came in to the two o’clock dinner, breezy, cheerful, and energetic as ever. There was no dessert, and no wine, no beverage of any kind but water, not even a cup of tea or coffee. This was the beginning of the married life of Lydia Maria Child, a woman of genius, who, in a worldly point of view, ought to have had a different lot, but who never faltered or failed in her duty to her husband, and who was, beyond all doubt, perfectly happy in her relations with him through their long lives.

  I saw her only twice, but she impressed me as a strong and lofty personality, so far above the usual social human being that her solitude and the sparseness of her environment seemed to partake of the character of luxuries which most of us were unfit to share.

General

  We are glad to see that the author of “Hobomok,” whom we understand to be a lady, has resumed her pen. That interesting little tale made its way to the public favor solely by its own merits, and was scarcely noticed by our critics, till their opinions had been rendered of little consequence by the decision of the literary community. Whatever objections may be made to the mode in which the story is conducted, and the catastrophe produced, it cannot be denied, that these faults are abundantly redeemed by beauties of no ordinary value. In graphic descriptions of scenery, in forcible delineations of character, in genuine pathos, we think “Hobomok” may be safely compared with any work of fiction, which our country has produced…. The author has paid the usual price of an early reputation, that of being compelled to use redoubled exertions in order to prevent it from fading. We cannot venture to say, that her laurels have lost none of their freshness by the present attempt, [“The Rebels”] but on the other hand, we think that her failure is only a partial one, and that it may be ascribed to other causes than want of ability…. The narrative is greatly deficient in simplicity and unity, and is not so much one story as a number of separate stories, not interwoven, but loosely tied together.

  This lady has long been before the public as an author, with much success. And she well deserves it,—for in all her works we think that nothing can be found, which does not commend itself by its tone of healthy morality, and generally by its good sense. Few female writers, if any, have done more or better things for our literature, in its lighter or graver departments. She has continued to render herself popular in fiction and fact; to be graceful alike in telling a village story, and in giving a receipt for the kitchen; to be at home in the prose and poetry of life; in short, to be just the woman we want for the mothers and daughters of the present generation. We have long watched the course of Mrs. Child, and in general, with satisfaction. Sometimes we have been more than satisfied,—we have admired her.

  I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, I do not fear them. A few years hence the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I shall have not even the most transient interest; but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing even one single hour the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild’s wealth or Sir Walter’s fame.

  Mrs. Child has some intellectual traits, which are well suited to success in this field of literary enterprise. She has a vigorous and exuberant imagination, and an accurate eye for beauty of form. She understands the harmonious construction of language, and can describe both nature and society with liveliness and truth. Her style, in its general character, is rich and eloquent; abounding in brilliant turns and fanciful illustrations. It is generally simple, energetic, and impressive, but sometimes it is too dazzling. In fact, the copiousness of her imagination, and the ardor of her feelings, which lend such power to her enthusiastic eloquence, in a measure injure her style for classical novel-writing.

  Mrs. Child has sent me a Book, “Philothea,” and a most magnanimous epistle. I have answered as I could. The Book is beautiful, but of a hectic beauty; to me not pleasant, even fatal-looking. Such things grow not in the ground, on mother earth’s honest bosom, but in hothouses,—Sentimental-Calvinist fire traceable underneath!

  There is a vivacious naturalness about the book, [“Letters from New York”] compassing even its oddities, covering up its minor defects of rhetoric, that to one like ourselves, tired with the heat and dust of this dry September, is refreshing as an April shower. At times, too, there are scattered up and down over the letters little eloquent apostrophes, which, if we liken its general vivacity to a shower, may in sequence be likened to an iced draught of the pure element. We have not even now said what we might say, that there is an extravagant tone pervading the whole, which being at once natural and graceful in the writer, we can by no means condemn; but the same being strange and unsuited to a running comment upon practical matters, and such occasionally are sublimed by the writer’s touch, we cannot wholly praise…. One word more, and a kind one, to Mrs. Child. We wish not to lessen one iota the amount of your influence, which we believe to be considerable; and so believing, we implore you, by your hatred of formalism and cant, of ostentations and pride—by your sympathy with human want, and your hearty relish for all that is natural and noble in thought and in action, to direct that influence against the crying evils of social life. Your energies misdirected will avail less than those of a weak man; rightly directed, they will avail more than those of the strongest.

  “Philothea,” in especial, is written with great vigor, and, as a classical romance, is not far inferior to the “Anacharsis” of Barthélemy; its style is a model for purity, chastity and ease.

  Mrs. Child has a large acquaintance with common life, which she describes with a genial sympathy and fidelity,—a generous love of freedom, extreme susceptibility of impressions of beauty, and an imagination which bodies forth her feelings in forms of peculiar distinctness and freshness. Her works abound in bright pictures and fanciful thoughts, which seem to be of the atmosphere in which she lives. She transfuses into them something of her own spirit, which, though meditative and somewhat mystical, is always cheerful and radiant. In her revelation on music, illustrations of the doctrine of correspondence, and all the more speculative parts of her various writings, she has shown that fine perception of the mysterious analogy which exists between the physical and moral world, and of the mode in which the warp and woof of life are mingling, which is among the first attributes of the true poet.

  The design of the abolitionists, let us believe, is the improvement and happiness of the coloured race; for this end Mrs. Child devoted her noblest talents, her holiest aspirations. Seventeen years ago she consecrated her powers to this work. The result has been, that her fine genius, her soul’s wealth has been wasted in the struggle which party politicians have used for their own selfish purposes. Had Mrs. Child taken the more quiet, but far more efficient mode of doing good to the coloured race by aiding to establish schools in Liberia—preparing and sending out free colored emigrants, who must there become teachers and exemplars to thousands and millions of the poor black heathen; if she had written for this mission of peace as she has poured her heart out in a cause only tending to strife, what blessed memorials of these long years would now be found to repay her disinterested exertions!

  Mrs. Child is a woman of strong and generous impulses, with a lively sense of beauty, especially fond of music, and of tracing fanciful analogies between its subtile suggestions and the sister arts, believing in absolute truth and justice, but somewhat too enthusiastic to preserve always the just balance of judgment. Her works apparently reflect her own nature, and bring the reader and author face to face. In the haste of composition there are occasional slips, and among so many works there is not a uniform standard of merit; still there are few authors who have added so much to the pleasure and to the moral culture of our generation. It is to be hoped that a revised edition of her works may be published, as many of them are now out of print.

  Whose “Letters from New York” were models in their kind; whose stories for young people have not been surpassed by any writer, except Andersen; whose more labored works have a quality that entitles them to a high place among the products of mind, is a devotee of the transcendental faith.

  In judging of this little book, [“Hobomok”] it is to be remembered that it marked the very dawn of American imaginative literature. Irving had printed only his “Sketch Book;” Cooper only “Precaution.” This new production was the hasty work of a young woman of nineteen—an Indian tale by one who had scarcely even seen an Indian. Accordingly “Hobomok” now seems very crude in execution, very improbable in plot; and is redeemed only by a certain earnestness which carries the reader along, and by a sincere attempt after local coloring. It is an Indian “Enoch Arden,” with important modifications, which unfortunately all tend away from probability…. As the first work whose scene was laid in Puritan days, “Hobomok” will always have a historic interest, but it must be read in very early youth to give it any other attraction…. The “Frugal Housewife” now lies before me, after a great many years of abstinence from its appetizing pages. The words seem as familiar as when we children used to study them beside the kitchen fire, poring over them as if their very descriptions had power to allay an unquenched appetite or prolong the delights of one satiated…. As it [“Appeal”] was the first anti-slavery work ever printed in America in book form, so I have always thought it the ablest; that is, it covered the whole ground better than any other. I know that, on reading it for the first time, nearly ten years after its appearance, it had more formative influence on my mind in that direction than any other, although of course the eloquence of public meetings was a more exciting stimulus. It never surprised me to hear that even Dr. Channing attributed a part of his own anti-slavery awakening to this admirable book…. I well remember the admiration with which this romance [“Philothea”] was hailed; and for me personally it was one of those delights of boyhood which the criticism of maturity cannot disturb…. She was one of those prominent instances in our literature of persons born for the pursuits of pure intellect, whose intellects were yet balanced by their hearts, both being absorbed in the great moral agitations of the age…. She wrote better than most of her contemporaries, and well enough for her public, she did not, therefore, win that intellectual immortality which only the best writers command…. But she won a meed which she would value more highly,—that warmth of sympathy, that mingled gratitude of intellect and heart which men give to those who have faithfully served their day and generation.

  As for the exact literary rank of this heroic woman, the critical scales must be passed to younger and cooler hands. In the homes of a few “original Garrisonians” her early books were still cherished. We learned to read, that we might not be dependent on our busy elders for daily absorption in her “Flowers for Children.” Our own offspring seem to detect a moral and Edgeworthian flavor in the cherished volume, and prefers “Little Women.” We first heard the very names of Pericles and Plato in her Greek romance “Philothea.” “The Letters from New York” widened the visa of a village street to our boyish eyes. Though not successful in rhythmical utterance, Mrs. Child had much of the poet’s nature. Her “Philothea” is almost a rhapsody. Her firm faith in thought-transference, her half-belief in metempsychosis, her mystical and ideal tendencies generally, unite with the frugality of the Yankee housewife even more grotesquely, at times, than the similar mixture in Emerson; and, like him, she is herself the first to laugh. Of all the picturesque figures among Transcendentalists and Abolitionists, there is perhaps not one so utterly lovable. Some of her books may yet regain their influence.