Author of the first American best-seller and the first American writer to find an audience for fiction, Susanna Haswell Rowson also became widely known during her lifetime as an accomplished actress, playwright, songwriter, poet, and educator. Her best-selling novel, Charlotte. A Tale of Truth (1791), later retitled Charlotte Temple, has gone through more than 150 editions, including 9 editions in three languages other than English. Rowson has earned a permanent place in American history for her accomplishments in women's education and for her portrayals of female independence on stage and in print. Her drama Slaves in Algiers provoked a pamphlet controversy in Philadelphia in 1794 for its assertions of female equality. Her life and works epitomize the importance and interrelatedness of the arts in early America.

Susanna Haswell was born in February 1762 to Susanna Musgrave Haswell and William Haswell in Portsmouth, England. Her mother died soon after Susanna's birth. Her father came...