Susan Warner

Susan Bogert Warner (July 11, 1819 - March 17, 1885), was an American evangelical writer of religious fiction, children's fiction, and theological works Born in New York City, she wrote, under the name of "Elizabeth Wetherell", thirty novels, many of which went into multiple editions. However, her first novel, The Wide, Wide World (1850), was the most popular. It was translated into several other languages, including French, German, and Dutch. Other than Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was perhaps the most widely circulated story of American authorship. Other works include Queechy (1852), The Law and the Testimony, (1853), The Hills of the Shatemuc, (1856), The Old Helmet (1863)

"Mamma, what was that I heard papa saying to you this morning about his lawsuit?" "I cannot tell you just now. Ellen, pick up that shawl and spread it over me." "Mamma -are you cold in this warm room?" "A little, -there, that will do. Now, my daughter, let me be quiet awhile-don't disturb me." There was no one else in the room. Driven thus to her own resources, Ellen betook herself to the window and sought amusement there. The prospect without gave little promise of it. Rain was falling, and made the street and everything in it look dull and gloomy. The foot-passengers plashed through the water, and the horses and carriages plashed through the mud; gaiety had forsaken the side-walks, and equipages were few, and the people that were out were plainly there only because they could not help it. But yet Ellen, having seriously set herself to study everything that passed, presently became engaged in her occupation; and her thoughts travelling dreamily from one thing to another, she sat for a long time with her little face pressed against the window-frame, perfectly regardless of all but the moving world without

"Mother, I wonder how people do, when they are going to write a book?" "Do?" repeated her mother. "Yes. I wonder how they begin." "I suppose they have something to tell; and then they tell it," said simple Mrs. Carpenter. "No, no, but I mean a story." "What story have you got there?" The mother was shelling peas; the daughter, a girl of twelve years old perhaps, was sitting on the floor at her feet, with an octavo volume in her lap. The floor was clean enough to sit upon; clean enough almost to eat off; it was the floor of the kitchen of a country farmhouse. "This is the 'Talisman, '" the girl answered her mother's question. "O mother, when I am old enough, I should like to write stories " "Why?