Rose Terry Cooke (1827–1892)

Rose Terry was born to a well-to-do family in Connecticut and graduated from the Hartford Female Seminary. She became a teacher and governess. She published her first short story in Graham’s Magazine in 1845. Her first poem, “Trailing Arbutus,” appeared in the New York Daily Tribune in 1851. By 1857, she was well known enough to be invited by James Russell Lowell to contribute the leading story in the first issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Her short fiction often featured the scenes and characters of rural New England. She married in 1873 and was known thereafter as Rose Terry Cooke. Her stories were collected in several volumes including Happy Dodd; or, She Hath Done What She Could (1878), Somebody’s Neighbors (1881), The Deacon’s Week (1885), The Sphinx’s Children and Other People’s (1886), and Huckleberries Gathered from New England Hills (1891). In addition, she published about 50 stories for children in various magazines. Her poems, which were collected in volumes published in 1861 and 1888, included some frontier ballads.