Text: James B. Reece, “Ann S. Stephens,” Poe's Poe and the New York Literati Story, dissertation, 1954 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 209, continued:]

Ann Sophia Stephens (1813-1886) was born in Derby, Connecticut, where her father, John Winterbotham, managed the woolen mills established by David Hymphreys. In 1831 she married Edward Stephens, a merchant of Portland, Maine, where they lived during the next six years. Here, in 1834, Mrs. Stephens began her long literary career by editing and writing for the Portland Magazine which she conducted for two years. After 1837 the couple lived in New York, where Stephens received an appointment to the custom house and Mrs. Stephens accepted an editorial position with the Ladies’ Companion after her tale “Mary Derwent” had won a prize offered by that periodical. [page 210:]

The industrious labors of Mrs. Stephens soon established her as one of the most prolific and popular female authors of country. With great regularity she supplied monthly contributions to the magazines with which she associated her name editorially, the Ladies’ Companion, Graham's, and the Lady's World of Literature and Fashion (later Peterson's Magazine). She occasionally sent verse, but her contributions were usually tales, many of which were long enough to require serial publication. Her association with Peterson's began in 1843 and continued until her death more than forty years later. For two years (1856-1858) conducted Mrs. Stephens’ Illustrated New Monthly.

Mrs. Stephens wrote more than twenty novels, which, according to the author of her obituary notice in the Tribune, “are chiefly devoted to the trials, sorrows and joys of young lovers.” Among the most popular of these were Fashion and Famine (1854), and the earliest of the dime novels, Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (1860). Other works include High Life in New York (1843) and a Pictorial History of the War for the Union (2 vols, 1863-1866).(1)

In December, 1841, Poe noted. in Graham's that Mrs. Stephens [page 211:] had written many popular and meritorious articles for the periodicals. Hereafter, he continued, she will “enrich this magazine with her compositions, and act as one of its editors. In the same issue Mrs. Stephens and Mrs. Embury were announced as additions to the editorial staff.(3) The duties of the new editors appear to have been limited to supplying contributions; Poe wrote later in the “Literati” sketch of Mrs. Stephens that she “had nothing to do with the editorial control”(4) of the magazine.

The few volumes that appeared from the pen of Mrs. Stephens during Poe's lifetime escaped his criticism, but in the “Literati” sketch of her he recorded the impression he had received of her abilities through reading her magazine tales. She was attracted by melodrama, he wrote, and had some skill character. He had little praise for her plots and “turgid — even bombastic” style. But, he remarked, her faults “belong to the effervescence of high talent, if not exactly of [page 212:] genius.”(5)

Poe had not met Mrs. Stephens when he wrote the “Literati” sketch of her; the only evidence of personal acquaintance between the two appears in reminiscences of Mary —— , who recalled meeting Mrs. Stephens at the Poe cottage on the day of Virginia's funeral.(7)

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