Martha Finley
Elsie Dinsmore: Book 1
Elsie's Holiday at Roselands: Book 2 in the Original Elsie Classics
Elsie's Girlhood: Book 3 in the Original Elsie Classics
Elsie's Womanhood: Book 4 in the Original Elsie Classics
Elsie's Motherhood: Book 5 in the Original Elsie Classics
Elsie's Children: Book 6 in the Original Elsie Classics
Elsie's Widowhood: Book 7 in the Original Elsie Classics
Grandmother Elsie: Book 8 in the Original Elsie Classics
Mildred Keith: Book 1
Mildred at Roselands: Book 2
Mildred and Elsie: Book 3
Mildred's Married Life: Book 4
Mildred at Home: Book 5
Mildred's Boys and Girls: Book 6
Mildred's New Daughter: Book 7
MISS MARTHA FINLEY was born on April 26, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio to an affluent and patriotic family. Her first decade was spent living in different towns of Ohio and Indiana with her parents, Dr. James Brown Finley and Maria Theresa Brown, while educated at home and in private schools in varying cities.
In 1853, after the death of her parents, Miss Finley moved to New York, and later to Philadelphia. She became a private educator and taught students in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. During the Civil War, and until 1874, she lived between both New York and Philadelphia. When her school was destroyed during the war, she moved to Bedford, Pennsylvania, living with an aunt and sister. While in Philadelphia in 1876, at the Centennial Exposition, she visited relatives in Elkton, Maryland. With the onset of poor health and the advice of her physician residing there, she decided to make Elkton her home.
Miss Finley, at age 26, began her literary career writing a newspaper article and Sunday School Stories for a Presbyterian publication. After becoming dependant upon others because of poor health, she prayed for a means to support herself. After three years of writing, her first book, Elsie Dinsmore, was published. Young readers demanded more, causing Miss Finley to comply, until there were 28 books in the series.
An invalid for many years, Miss Finley wrote many of her books while prostrated with illness. A simple, pleasant woman with delicate features, never married and childless, Miss Finley was one of the most beloved authors, by children, of all time, with over 25 million readers in both America and England. She lived and wrote quietly until her death in Elkton, Maryland in 1909.--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.