Alice Brown

Who was Alice Brown?

Alice Brown was an American novelist, poet and playwright, best known as a writer of local color stories. She also contributed a chapter to the collaborative novel, The Whole Family.

She was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire and graduated from Robinson Seminary in Exeter in 1876. She later worked as a school teacher for five years, but moved to Boston to write full-time in 1884. She first worked at the Christian Register and then, starting in 1885, the Youth's Companion.

She was a prolific author for many years, but her popularity waned after the turn of the 20th century. She produced a book a year until she stopped writing in 1935. She corresponded with Rev. Michael Earls of the College of the Holy Cross and with Father J. M. Lelen of Falmouth, Kentucky, with whom she also exchanged poems. Yale University and Holy Cross now have the only sizable collections of her letters, since she ordered that most of her personal correspondence should be destroyed after her death. Brown died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948.