The New International Encyclopædia/Spofford, Harriet Elizabeth (Prescott)

SPOFFORD, Harriet Elizabeth (Prescott) (1835—). An American novelist, born at Calais, Me. Educated at Newburyport, Mass., and Derry, N. H., she adopted literature as a profession and first attracted attention in 1859 by a story of Parisian life, In a Cellar, printed in the Atlantic Monthly. In the same year she published Sir Rohan's Ghost, followed by The Amber Gods and Other Stories (1863), and Azarian, an Episode (1864). In 1865 she married Richard S. Spofford, a Boston lawyer. The more noteworthy of her later books were: New England Legends (1871), The Thief in the Night (1872), Art Decoration Applied to Furniture (1881), Marquis of Carabas (1882), Poems (1882), Hester Stanley at Saint Marks (1883), The Servant Girl Question (1884), Ballads About Authors (1888), Scarlet Poppy and Other Stories (1894), A Master Spirit (1896), and In Titian's Garden and Other Poems (1897).