Andover Author - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Ward] (1844-1911) was a prominent author who lived in Andover who wrote on the subjects of spiritualism, feminism, and animal rights. Born Mary Gray Phelps, she took on her mother’s first name at an early age after her passing. In becoming a writer she took after both parents. Her mother, Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps, wrote the popular Kitty Brown series of books for girls under the pseudonym H. Trusta . Her father, Austin Phelps, was a clergyman and professor who wrote many religious texts. At only thirteen, Phelps’ first published work appeared in The Youth’s Companion magazine. As an adult, her work was featured in many periodicals, including Harper’s Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly.

In 1868 she published her first novel, The Gates Ajar, which went on to become one of the best selling books of the nineteenth century, when she was only twenty four years old. She was inspired by the death of her fiancé, Lt. Samuel Hopkins Thompson , at the Battle of Antietam, as well as by the untimely losses of her mother and stepmother in her youth. The book centered on the belief that families would be reunited in the afterlife. After the book's success she would go on to write 56 more novels as well as many short stories, essays, poems and pamphlets. These works included two successful sequels titled Beyond the Gates (1883) and The Gates Between (1887).

Social Issues and Advocacy

At age 19, Phelps taught the children of factory families and worked with tenement dwellers, experiences which inspired her commitment to improving conditions for the working class.. In both her novel The Silent Partner (1871) and in her stories she documented the harsh realities of industrial life. She wrote the short story "The Tenth of January" for the March 1968 issue of Atlantic Monthly (reprinted in the collection "Men, Women, and Ghosts"). In this fictionalized account of the disaster she described the poor conditions that led to the collapse of the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence on January 10, 1860.

In 1871 she wrote a piece for The Independent titled “The True Woman” which criticized men’s control over women and urged the need for greater equality. She also wrote about reform in her pamphlet "What to Wear?" (1873), Phelps advocated for changes to women's restrictive clothing and encouraged them to burn their corsets. In 1876, she was the first woman to lecture at Boston University, in a series titled "Representative Modern Fiction." When she married at age 44 she chose to keep her last name, as she felt this was a woman’s right.

Phelps’ passion for animal rights was also prevalent in many of her works, including the novels Loveliness (1899) and Trixy (1904) which disavowed experimentation on animals for scientific study. Phelps was very dedicated to the cause of anti-vivisection, contributing to pamphlets and giving speeches to the Massachusetts Legislature encouraging further regulation.

Partial Bibliography

• The Gates Ajar 1868 (A novel that presented a comforting view of the afterlife for Civil War widows.)
• Hedged In 1870
• The Silent Partner 1871
• The Story of Avis 1877
• Sealed Orders 1879 Short stories many of them reprinted from Harper's Monthly.
• Beyond the Gates 1883
• Old Maids and Burglars in Paradise 1885
• The Madonna of the Tubs 1886
• Austin Phelps: A Memoir 1891 The biography of her father, a professor at Andover Theological Seminary
• Donald Marcy 1893
• Chapters from Life 1896 Her autobiography
• A Singular Life 1897
• Men, Women, and Ghosts 1899
• Walled In 1907

References

See Also

• Andover Stories: "Before Bra-Burning Feminists, There Was Andover Author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" by Jennifer Tarbox. Andover Townsman 7/8/2010
• Articles from the Atlantic Monthly by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps in the Andover Authors Collection in the Andover Room.
• The Literary Fate of the Woman Artist: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Story of Avis
• Julie Mofford on "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps of Andover"

--Eleanor 15:46, March 13, 2012 (EDT) --Shannon (talk) 15:54, 5 May 2024 (EDT)