Lydia Howard Sigourney

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LHS has been called the first professional woman poet of the USA.
Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. University of Texas Press.
90
Immensely prolific, she published more than sixty-five books (didactic, educational, biography, children's, and travel books as well as poetry), and stopped counting at over 2,000 contributions to periodicals, annuals, and gift books. Late in life she commented, I think now with amazement, and almost incredulity, of the number of articles I was induced by the urgency of editors to furnish.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
1
Her very high contemporary reputation has as yet led to no real revival of interest in her work.
Full-length photograph of Lydia Howard Sigourney by Matthew Brady. She is seated on a wooden chair with wooden panelling behind her, wearing a dark jacket and hood with lace bonnet and collar, and a full, boldly checked skirt. She holds a handkerchief in her hands.

Milestones

1 September 1791

Lydia Howard Huntley (later LHS ) was born in Norwich, Connecticut, USA, her parents' only child.
Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, editors. American Authors, 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature. H. W. Wilson.
690

March 1815

Lydia Howard Huntley (later Sigourney) published at Hartford, Connecticut, her first book, Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse, with her own name, a practice which she discontinued on her marriage.
Blanck, Jacob et al., editors. Bibliography of American Literature. Yale University Press.
7: 432
Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. University of Texas Press.
84

December 1834

LHS published a small volume entitled simply Poems, a couple of years after her family became dependent on her literary earnings.
Blanck, Jacob et al., editors. Bibliography of American Literature. Yale University Press.
7: 439
Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. University of Texas Press.
84

10 June 1865

LHS died in Hartford, Connecticut, where she had lived all her life, and where two streets are now named after her.
Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, editors. American Authors, 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature. H. W. Wilson.
690
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
239

2 April 1866

LHS 's autobiographical Letters of Life, published at New York the year after her death, was her last book to reach print, completed by her daughter with an account of her deathbed.
Blanck, Jacob et al., editors. Bibliography of American Literature. Yale University Press.
7: 478
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
239
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
183

Biography

Birth and Family

1 September 1791

Lydia Howard Huntley (later LHS ) was born in Norwich, Connecticut, USA, her parents' only child.
Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, editors. American Authors, 1600-1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature. H. W. Wilson.
690

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