Moulton, Louise Chandler (1835–1908)

American writer and literary hostess. Born Ellen Louise Chandler on April 10, 1835, in Pomfret, Connecticut; died of Bright's disease on August 10, 1908, in Boston, Massachusetts; daughter of Lucius Lemuel Chandler and Louisa Rebecca (Clark) Chandler; attended Christ Church Hall in Pomfret, Connecticut; graduated from Emma Willard's Troy (N.Y.) Female Seminary, 1855; married William Upham Moulton, on August 27, 1855; children: daughter Florence Moulton; one son who died in infancy.

Selected writings:

This, That, and the Other (1854); Bed-Time Stories (1874–1880); Some Women's Hearts (1874); Poems (1877); Swallow-Flights and Other Poems (1878); Random Rambles (1881); Firelight Stories (1883); Ourselves and Our Neighbors: Short Chats on Social Topics (1887); Stories Told at Twilight (1890); The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston (editor, 1893); Arthur O'Shaughnessy, His Life and His Work, with Selections from His Poems (editor, 1894); Lazy Tours in Spain and Elsewhere (1896); Poems and Sonnets of Louise Chandler Moulton (1909).

Louise Chandler Moulton was born on April 10, 1835, on the family farm near Pomfret, Connecticut. Her parents were stern New Englanders with strong Calvinistic leanings, and although she wanted for nothing materially, Louise had a lonely and somber childhood. Her classmates at Reverend Roswell Park's school in Pomfret, Christ Church Hall, included James McNeill Whistler and E.C. Stedman. Moulton had her first poem published in the daily paper in Norwich, Connecticut, at age 14, and in 1854 a collection of her poems and sketches was published as This, That and the Other and sold some 20,000 copies. She completed her education with a year at Emma Willard 's Troy (N.Y.) Female Seminary, and was class poet of her graduating class in June 1855. Six weeks after her graduation, she married William Upham Moulton, the editor and publisher of The True Flag, a Boston literary journal to which she had contributed. The couple settled in Boston and had two children, a daughter, Florence Moulton , and a son who died in infancy.

During her first year of marriage, Moulton published her second book, Juno Clifford, which received praise, and rapidly established herself as an important figure in Boston literary circles. In the years that followed, she published many verses, stories, and sketches in Godey's Lady's Book, Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's, Youth's Companion, Harper's Bazaar, and other magazines. In 1874, a volume of her narrative sketches appeared as Some Women's Hearts, and her children's stories were collected in several volumes of Bed-Time Stories (1874–80). Her first book of poetry was published to excellent reviews in 1877. There was a great deal of literary activity in Boston during the 1860s and 1870s, and Moulton became known for her Friday salons, which were frequented by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Moulton was also friendly with such women writers as Julia Ward Howe , Annie Adams Fields ,Sarah Orne Jewett , and Harriet Prescott Spofford .) In later years, members of Boston's best families also attended these fashionable events, as did foreign celebrities.

In 1870, Moulton became the Boston literary correspondent for the New York Tribune, serving until 1876, and worked in the same position for the Boston Sunday Herald from 1887 to 1891. She had a sharp eye for talent and was generous with her praise. She did much to introduce American readers to new poets and writers, especially the Pre-Raphaelites and the French Symbolists. After her first visit to Europe in January 1876, Moulton usually spent her summers abroad, and London became her second home. The publication of her poems in England served to reinforce her social standing, and in 1877 in London, a breakfast given in her honor by Lord Houghton was attended by Robert Browning, Algernon Swinburne, George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans ), Jean Ingelow , Gustave Doré, and William Makepeace Thackeray. She later met other literary giants, including Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats. For the next three decades, Moulton presided regally over her weekly salons in Boston for six months of the year and in London for the other six months. Much of her travel during these years was documented in sketches appearing in Ourselves and Our Neighbors (1887), Random Rambles (1881), and Lazy Tours in Spain and Elsewhere (1896). In 1889, another volume of verse, In the Garden of Dreams, confirmed her reputation as a poet. Moulton's work was highly personal and sensitive, in keeping with the spirit of the age. Her poems were particularly praised, and many were set to music by contemporary composers.

In her later years, Moulton's dread of aging became obvious, evidenced by a circle of younger and younger friends and her style of dress. Dissatisfied with the Calvinist faith of her childhood, for years she was identified with the Episcopal Trinity Church in Boston, but in her final months she reportedly found comfort in Christian Science. She died of Bright's disease in her Boston home in 1908, and was buried beside her husband in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

sources:

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

suggested reading:

Hart, John S. Female Prose Writers of America. 3rd ed., 1857, pp. 532–534.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. "Louise Chandler Moulton: An Appreciation," in Boston Transcript. August 12, 1908.

Howe, Julia Ward, ed. Representative Women of New England, 1904.

Spofford, Harriet Prescott. Our Famous Women, 1884.

Whiting, Lilian. Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend, 1910.

collections:

Fifty volumes of Louise Chandler Moulton's correspondence are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Jo Anne Meginnes , freelance writer, Brookfield, Vermont