Mrs. John Farrar (1791–1870)

Eliza Ware Rotch Farrar was born in Dunkirk, France to Benjamin and Elizabeth Rotch, Quakers merchants from Nantucket who had emigrated to France to establish a tax-free whaling port. As a child, she and her family fled the French Revolution and moved to England, where they settled near Milford Haven. She received an excellent education and grew up among eminent European and American visitors to her home. In 1819, her father lost his fortune and she went to live with her grandparents in New Bedford, Massachusetts. There she was originally a member in good standing of the Society of Friends but was eventually disowned for her liberal views.

In 1828, she married John Farrar, a professor of mathematics at Harvard. Between 1830 and 1837, Eliza wrote numerous books and advice manuals for children published under the name Mrs. John Farrar. The Young Lady's Friend (1836) is notable for its valuable insights into the activities and preoccupations of the 19th-century American middle class. She then put off publishing for 15 years while caring for her husband in the years before his death. In 1866, she published her own autobiography, Recollections of Seventy Years.