A hundred years ago, Margaret Deland was a top American author on par with Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, or Thomas Hardy. She rubbed elbows with presidents and became a prominent member of Boston Society. But she is also a study in contradictions and almost unknown today. This Civil War era orphan raised by old school Presbyterians became an independent, self-made woman during Victorian times. She captures the struggles of nineteenth century women in her novels; she took unwed mothers into her home but declined to join the suffragette movement. Her literary success did not deter her from...

A hundred years ago, Margaret Deland was a top American author on par with Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, or Thomas Hardy. She rubbed elbows with presidents and became a prominent member of Boston Society. But she is also a study in contradictions and almost unknown today. This Civil War era orphan raised by old school Presbyterians became an independent, self-made woman during Victorian times. She captures the struggles of nineteenth century women in her novels; she took unwed mothers into her home but declined to join the suffragette movement. Her literary success did not deter her from...