SOURCE: Spofford, Harriet Prescott. “Rose Terry Cooke.” In Our Famous Women: An Authorized Record of Their Lives and Deeds, pp. 174-206. Hartford: A. D. Worthington & Co., 1888.

In the following essay, Spofford, a friend of Cooke, discusses the fictional and autobiographical writings of the author.

A quarter of a century ago, most of us can recall the joyous pride with which the birth of the Atlantic Monthly was hailed, and the eagerness with which each number was anticipated. Into what charming company it took us! There the Autocrat of the Breakfast-table held his genial sway; Motley fought over the “Battle of Lepanto”; Colonel Higginson led us into the woods of “April Days” and among the “Water-Lilies” of August in his series of wondrous out-door studies; Anne Whitney came with poems of a loftier reach and fuller grasp than any other woman has ever given the world; the “Minister's Wooing...