Writer, Actress, Educator

The First Best-selling American Novelist.

Most often remembered as the author of Charlotte. A Tale of Truth (1791), a story of seduction, betrayal, and tragic death that became the first best-selling novel in the United States, Susanna Haswell Rowson was known to Americans of her time as an actress, playwright, songwriter, and educator.

Early Life.

Born in Portsmouth, England, Susanna Haswell moved with her father, a lieutenant in the British navy, to Nantasket, Massachusetts, in 1767, where she spent most of her childhood. During the Revolution her family's Loyalist sympathies made their situation there difficult, and they returned to England as part of a prisoner exchange in 1778. While in England she married William Rowson, an actor, musician, and hardware merchant, in 1786, the same year in which she published her first novel, Victoria.

Charlotte.

Rowson followed this work with several other novels, the best...