Harriet Vaughan Cheney facts for kids

Harriet Vaughan Cheney (born September 9, 1796 – died May 14, 1889) was an American-Canadian writer. She wrote many historical novels, like A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Thirty-Six and The Rivals of Acadia. She also wrote religious books for children.

Biography of Harriet Vaughan Cheney

Harriet Vaughan Cheney was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, on September 9, 1796. Her father, John Foster, was a religious leader. Her mother, Hannah Webster Foster, and her sister, Eliza Lanesford Cushing, were also writers.

Cheney published her first books in Boston. In 1830, she married Edward Cheney, a Canadian merchant. They had four children together. She then moved to Montreal, Canada, where she lived for the rest of her life. Her sister Eliza also married a Canadian and moved to Montreal. The two sisters often wrote stories and poems for the Literary Garland. This was Canada's main magazine for literature at the time. Cheney continued to publish her longer books in Boston.

After their husbands passed away in 1845 and 1846, the two sisters started a new magazine. It was called The Snow-Drop. This was a monthly magazine for girls. It focused on what young women learned and did at home and in society. Harriet Cheney died in 1889.

Selected Works

Here are some of the books and stories Harriet Vaughan Cheney wrote:

• The Sunday-School, or Village Sketches (1820, with Eliza Cushing)
• A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Thirty-Six: A Tale of Olden Times (1824, published without her name)
• The Rivals of Acadia: an Old Story of the New World (1827, published without her name)
• Sketches from the Life of Christ (1844)
• Confessions of an Early Martyr (1846)
• The Snow-Drop (a magazine, 1847–52, with Eliza Cushing)
• Stories for The Literary Garland:
  • "Jacques Cartier and the Little Indian Girl" (1848)
  • "The Emigrants" (1850)
  • "Cousin Emma" (1850)
  • "A Legend of the Lake" (1851)
  • "The Old Manuscript: A Memoire of the Past" (1851)
• "Early Authorship" (an essay for the Garland, 1850)

• Cushing, Eliza Lanesford, and Harriet Vining Cheney. The Snow drop; or, Juvenile Magazine. Lovell and Gibson, Montreal. Vol. I, 1848.; Vol. II, 1849; Vol. III, 1850; Vol. IV, 1850.

Images for kids

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  Title page of 1850 edition of A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Hundred Thirty Six: A Tale of Olden Times.