Johnston, Mary (1870–1936)

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Johnston, Mary (1870–1936)

American novelist who wrote the bestselling To Have and To Hold. Born on November 21, 1870, in Buchanan, Virginia; died on May 9, 1936, near Warm Springs, Virginia; eldest of six children of John William Johnston (a lawyer and major in the Confederate Army) and Elizabeth (Alexander) Johnston: never married; no children.

Selected works:

Prisoners of Hope (1898); To Have and To Hold (1900); Audrey (1902); Sir Mortimer (1904); The Goddess of Reason (a play, 1907); Lewis Rand (1908); The Long Roll (1911); Cease Firing (1912); Hagar (1913); The Witch (1914); The Fortunes of Garin (1915); The Wanderers (1917); Foes (1918); Pioneers of the Old South (non-fiction, 1918); Michael Forth (1919); Sweet Rocket (1920); 1492 (1922); Silver Cross (1922); Croatan (1923); The Slave Ship (1924); The Great Valley (1926); The Exile (1927); Hunting Shirt (1931); Miss Delicia Allen (1933); Drury Randall (1934).

Mary Johnston, the author of 23 historical novels, including her best-known, To Have and To Hold, was born in 1870 in Buchanan, Virginia. She grew up in Buchanan, and in New York and Birmingham, Alabama. Due to poor health, she was educated at home by her grandmother and by reading from her father's extensive library. After her mother's death in 1889, Johnston took charge of the household which included five younger siblings. She never married and, following her father's death, settled permanently in Richmond, Virginia. Later, she built a large country estate in Warm Springs, Virginia, where she lived with three of her sisters and her brother, all of whom also remained single.

Johnston began writing stories at an early age, sending them to publishers and often burning them upon their initial rejection. Her first historical novel, Prisoner of Hope (1898), achieved moderate notice, but her second, To Have and To Hold (1900), about the women of the Jamestown colony, was a phenomenal success. Selling a half-million copies, it was also adapted for the screen several times. Twenty-one additional historical novels followed, which explored such diverse subjects as Henry VII's England, 12th-century feudal France, and Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World. In addition to her novels, all meticulously researched, Johnston published a volume of history, Pioneers of the Old South (1918), and a blank-verse drama, The Goddess of Reason (1907), which was produced in New York in 1909, starring Julia Marlowe . She also wrote poetry and magazine stories.

Described as a shy, serious woman, Johnston was an ardent feminist and in 1909, with Ellen Glasgow , founded the Equal Suffrage League in Richmond. She was also involved in a number of other progressive organizations, including the Consumers' League, the National Municipal League, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Johnston also used her talent as a writer to further the cause of women's rights, producing a number of articles for popular journals, such as the Atlantic Monthly. Dorothy M. Scura , in American Women Writers, points out that female emancipation was also the theme of Johnston's novel Hagar (1913), a story about a contemporary Southern writer who goes to New York to work for the rights of women. It was hailed by some critics as "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the women's movement." In a later feminist work, The Wanderers (1917), Johnston traces the changing relationships between men and women from early days up until the French Revolution through a series of 19 sketches.

Johnston's earlier works, however, are considered her best, among them two Civil War novels, The Long Roll (1911) and Cease Firing (1912), which trace two Virginia families through the epic war. Beginning with her sociological novels in 1913, Johnston's readership began to wane, and her later works, some of which ventured into mysticism, confused critics and readers alike. Although criticized for her melodramatic plots and romantic prose style, Johnston, at her best, stands as a consummate historical storyteller. Mary Johnston died of cancer on May 9, 1936, near Warm Springs.